Animal Kingdom

I had to go back to the vet's tonight to pick up some eye drops for Reggie that weren't available during his appointment. His eyes are drier than they want, so we'll be going to the animal eye specialist once I get it set up. But tonight the adventure was about other animals.

Reggie's vets have moved to a new location further west and we'd just entered the last leg of the trip where the traffic just suddenly dissipates. Civilization and lights seem left behind and nature springs up. It was still a four-lane road, but we were surrounded by fields and chirping locusts. The smell of distant rain seeped into the car to further isolate us.

I noticed that something was curled up on the road ahead of me and slowed down just as a deer stood up. This was a little more nature than I was expecting. I wasn't in any danger of hitting the deer, but I slowed anyway. Instead of going to the closest field the deer went the other way...right in front of a car coming from the other direction. I actually yelled, "Don't hit it!" even though the driver couldn't hear me. Fortunately, the deer turned back around and trotted in front of me, which wasn't an issue as I'd stopped the car. I was only a few feet from the young deer and wanted to take a picture, but didn't have my camera with me.

I drove cautiously onto the vet's and they me told there had been a coyote on that road two nights earlier...I think we have one of those in my own subdivision.  As I walked back to the car with Reggie's drops, I felt something smack the top of my foot. I was wearing sandals and as I moved my right foot through the air...as one does when one is walking...my toes definitely came into contact with something small, cold, and slimy. I looked down and watched two small frogs blitz-hop back off the walk into the scrubs. I'd kicked a frog. Surely this is some sort of achievement; how often does one's moving foot make contact with an air-born miniature frog?

I stood there a second looking at the deserted walk. All-in-all, I decided it was far better to have kicked a frog with the top of my foot than to have stepped on it with the bottom of my shoe or to have hit a deer with my car. Even so I grabbed hand sanitizer from the car and squirted it all over my toes. I'm such a girl!