Caramel Whiskey On An Ant-eaten Deck, Hero Frogs, & Magick

Labor Day weekend has Reese and Sleep visiting! They arrived Friday late afternoon (holiday travel was a bitch) and it was nice out, so once they got their stuff all put away they joined me on the deck to hang out.

They were both incredibly relieved to be here. The large house with the high ceilings tucked into a bit of Douglas Fir woods is a lovely place to relax! It’s why I hope I never have to leave!

I brought out a bottle with the last of my Caramel Whiskey (oh my god! it’s good!) to sip as we socialized. I bought the bottle last year at the beginning of the summer of ’22 and it took me over a year to reach the last 3 inches of the small bottle. But as I sipped it (from a small rocks glass, I’m not an animal!) and the evening wore on, I became quite tipsy and relaxed, though not obnoxious. At my age, it’s nice to know exactly how to “drink responsibly” but also–? My health hasn’t been good enough for most of the year to even indulge a little. When I’m flaring, I can’t drink for awhile… not during and even for several days afterwards. This last year, I’ve gone weeks between tipples. So… it was rather nice to be at a point where I could actually have a little alcohol again.

Sleep, however, didn’t join me as he normally does. He’s indulged a little too much this last summer, and he’s taking a break, which I totally support. I let him know I was happy not to drink in front of him if it was an issue, but he didn’t care if I did.

We had even more catching up to do, so we talked about the various and sundry issues of our lives. Once more, with Reese’s health issues, the two of them are talking marriage because they’re best friends who want to look out for one another. Her gallbladder surgery is in October.

When we talked about plans and problems I showed them the hollowed out area of a support beam that carpenter ants had eaten away on the very deck we were sitting upon! It wasn’t crucial yet, but the hollow would have to be addressed soon, to keep that deck a few years longer until we had the money to replace it. The hollowed out area was found by Cat earlier this week, and she had a dark couple of days where she got all bitchy again just thinking about having to deal with it.

Me–? I noticed that all the carpenter ants that were around all spring and into early summer were GONE. Is it like them to move on like that? Not really… but I was sure I knew what got rid of them, and without using toxins to do it.

Our froggies!

We have 3 to 4 frogs that hang out on our deck now. When we moved in, it was 1, then another the next year and now it seems we have a group of them. They hide during the day and come out at night when the porch lights go on to eat the bugs by the lights. They love the bench I sit on the most, and I always lift the cushion to check before sitting down so I don’t accidentally squish any. They’re super cute! But also this spring I saw them move from the porch light by the door to one by the far edge of the deck… where the ants were passing by. The frogs were often just inches away from the line where the ants passed by all the time to what we now know was the spot being hollowed out. There are no more ant nests anywhere around the whole deck!

We keep a fountain with water going on the deck, and the birds, bees, and frogs all use it (and a couple of other spots we fill and refill with water) so they were able to stay on a very dry deck and flourish with just the smallest bit of help from us. I love our little amphibian friends!

Those frogs haven’t sang out all summer. The spring we’ll hear them (along with thousands of others) for months, but they go largely silent in the summer, with a few croaks and peeps in the fall when the rains return. So what happened on this Friday at dusk was… synchronicity at it’s finest.

Reese felt called to talk to the trees, and as it was getting dark, Sleep walked with her to the tree line, facing the wee forest that leads down to the semi-wet lands at the bottom of our land. As soon as Reese started doing her thing, allowing herself to commune with them, one of the frogs next to me (where I was on that seat with up to 3 frogs just inches away from me) started croaking away! It went on for a couple of minutes while Reese did her thing. Then– as soon as she was done and turned away from the trees– the frog went silent again.

I would call it a mere coincidence if the frogs sometimes croaked even ONCE all summer… but they didn’t. It hadn’t rained. We hadn’t washed the deck or introduced extra water or anything. The fountain that has been on the deck for 3 years now was all that was around, and that’s been unchanged for, as I said, years. The croaking started out of the blue when Reese started talking to trees and stopped when she did.

THAT– boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen– THAT was an example of real magick. Subtle, but unmistakable. Yet again Reese does a magickal working and provokes a response. When she communed with faeries, we got walking small people phantoms and spectacular shining lights and even a UFO. When she talks to trees, a single frog seemed to “join along” after MONTHS of silence. [Later note: The frogs did not croak/sing again for the following 3 weeks afterwards, even with rain. Just saying...]

Naturally, I drew attention to it, because oh my freaking gods! That was seriously cool! She may have her own methods for doing magick, but I will never say Reese is not a witch. She keeps doing things that show otherwise. And not just a witch, I’d call her a “green” witch because she’s mixture of a hedge witch (very natural, drawn to plants & trees) and fae-witch, and Irish Faeries at that!

We went to bed near midnight after hours and hours of talking and enjoying our mutually eccentric and magickal company.