When it rained lots and lots, and it was close to summer, the pernickety old woman ran around putting buckets in the backyard to catch rainwater. Even when it stopped raining, she left them standing where they were.

Even as the Hand-of-God, I was mystified as I went round smelling at them. Just rainwater, half a bucket full, that I couldn’t reach to drink. What were they for? Couldn’t be for animals to drink from. I just proved that.

When the buckets were about half-full of rainwater, the pernickety old woman dipped her hand in the frog pond, scooped up a handful of azolla water weed and carried it dripping to the buckets and dripped a bit of the weed in each.

I think there were five buckets. The stuff grew like—well, a weed—and soon all the buckets had an island of green floating in them.

That evening, a clap of thunder! I raced for my favorite hiding place in the bottom of the bookshelves. Another thunderstorm. More rain.

The pernickety old woman loved a good thunderstorm. She stood laughing in the open laundry door, only slightly sheltered. “Smell the petrichor?” she said.

When the storm faded away, and the rain fell only mistily, the down-pipes from the roof started to boom. Or maybe call it a belling. A loud insistent kind of ringing echoed from ours, and all the ones in the neighboring yards on both sides. A racket!

“That’s them,” the pernickety old woman said. “The green tree frogs. The rain woke them, flushed the leaves from their hidey holes, and they’re sitting there—each under his own pipe—calling loud enough to bring any green tree frog female happening to be about.” She laughed.

Ah, I thought. They sit under the down-pipes to have their calling amplified. Smart. I miaowed and joined my human at the laundry door.

“Tomorrow we shall see what we’ll see,” she said. “The buckets will be in all night demand, I’m thinking.”

It was a dark night. I didn’t see a thing peering through the glass doors in the sun-room. I was so curious by the first morning light, I scratched at the pernickety old woman’s bedroom door. She didn’t let me sleep with her for this very reason. She being a night owl and I preferring to be up at the crack of dawn. All I heard was a groan. I think she meant for me to go away.

I did. For about five minutes. Scratched at the bedroom door again. “Fine!” I heard from the bed. Then it creaking.

The pernickety old woman grumbled from near the wardrobe. I understood her to be clothing herself. Humans are so bereft without fur. I skipped back to my position at the glass doors.

My human came bleary-eyed from the bedroom. Dressed in her usual long pants, cotton shirt and kimono loose over the top. She yawned. “Let me put on a pot of tea first.”

“Miaaoow!” Let’s go see outside first, that meant.

“Might as well, I suppose. Water won’t boil for a bit. Beautiful sunrise, all said and done. Wait till I grab my camera.”

She walked. I pranced to the first bucket. We peered into it. “Ah ha,” my human said. “I think we have a jackpot. Look at that! I think a whole clutch. Green tree frog spawn for sure.”