Spring Peepers

Tonight it's pouring rain. The temperature stayed above 40 all day and the wind is up. On my way home from work, lightning was flashing in the grey sky, but now the downpours have calmed to a drizzle and all the thunderstorms have passed along... for now anyway.

Outside my window is the sound of regular drip drip drips of rain freefalling from the second floor gutter and hitting the bent aluminum curve at the bottom of the downspout. Drip drip drip drip drip. It will do this all night. The other sound is the sound of the spring peepers. Tiny frogs that come out of the mud in spring all at once on a particular day and start singing. If you didn't know they were frogs, you might think some bunch of crazy song birds were up at night. Sweeet sweeeet sweeeet sw - sweee suh swee suh sweee sweet. It's a steady chorus late into the night. Every so often they all go silent, all at once, and then after a pause, they get into it again. At some point, they will stop singing altogether. I wonder if there is a leader frog that tells eveyone when to start and stop peeping. Hmmmm.