a three frog day

when i mowed the lawn, three frogs leapt to safety. i also later saw a toad in one of my gardens. there have been extremely few of either one in our neighborhood this year, and i'd been starting to wonder if one of the random fungal diseases had clobbered them. it seems not, though i don't know where they've been hiding.

yeah, i have predators in my gardens, sometimes even snakes too. and there's the usual large collection of carnivorous insects, including flocks of wasps and dragonflies. god knows what they're eating -- nothing seems to be destroying my plants -- but they don't seem go hungry.

the return of live entertainment

tuesday night marked the start of the local orchestra's concert season. everybody was wearing masks, including the musicians. the program was a grab-bag of short chamber pieces for violin and piano, played by the orchestra's second fiddle (assistant concertmaster) and its pianist.

i don't think it was any accident that it was just two musicians, neither of whom was playing anything to blow into. in fact, until we get into the performances for full orchestra in january, nothing requires wind instruments. (it's kinda hard to avoid a clarinet for the rhapsody in blue.)

the performance itself was fine listening, but unremarkable until the end. i was unpleasantly reminded that the local crowd will give a standing ovation to anything with a rousing finale, but this was made up for by an encore performance. sadly, neither of us caught much of the title, so all i know is it's somebody's something tango.

this year's orchestral season is dominated by popular works: the four seasons, an american in paris, to keep the rhapsody in blue company, the planets, the toccata and fugue in d minor, and two by some guy named strauss: also sprach zarathustra and on the beautiful blue danube. (everybody does recognize these, right? i'd like to hope at least some orchestral music is still widely known.)