What is an animal that I am grateful for? Why?

There are so many animals for which I am grateful, and I would include in this insects, fish, microbes, birds, spiders. I’ve thought about this all morning and it is so difficult to choose one! But I decided to share a little frog that I found in my garden on the farm last year. The farm is a reclaimed farm, that until 2016 had been a traditional, rented field farm, that had alternated between GMO corn and GMO soy. When my friend purchased it the land was dead-dead! There were no insects, birds, animals, and even weeds were rare because of the glyphosate. It was brown and bald and dead. He has a satellite photo of it at the time, and it is 40 acres of brown. He imported lots of compost, aerial planted cover crops, and brought in animals for manure and bees to pollinate. He offered to me last year the former deadest spot on the farm, which he had topped with a few inches of compost in the previous two years, which had settled down to about 3 inches. And I grew during covid year when we could not get ANYTHING, not even compost or leaf mold or manure because it was shut down time. Just the seeds I already had and my own labor with the help of my friend and his wife, until they had their lovely baby in May. When in August I found this little frog hiding in the beans I was ecstatic.

You see, frogs are among the most fragile of our land animals, when it comes to pollution and chemicals. Frogs are sensitive to them, and they also need food – insects. The insects in turn need healthy microbial soil life. This little frog, to me, was symbolic of the success of reclaiming the land. I took a photo. If you would like to see him, please drop into the lounge under “connect” in the menu. I will put a photo of my crops that year, too.