New seasons/New horrors part2 - Ma time to get me my whacking stick.

Like a dutch oven spring has slowly boiled its way into summer (like that cooking metaphor? how about...like the microwave in my apartment someone has pressed the on button!.... Or in the sauce pan of Japan with a bit of thyme spring is simmering away nicely!!.... hmmm nah stick with the dutch oven I think)

Anyway the sun is now out and about and so are Japans many many mannnnny creatures. Not sure if I already mentioned this but a few weeks ago I found a large bite on my back, about a week later I found a dead mukade in our lounge.... which offers up two points.

A) The poison I put down outside is working and is worth giving me a tingling sensation in my neck hmmm nerve poison.

or

B) my foreigners blood is sooooo toxic just one bite is enough to kill Japans hardest working critters Hurrarr..

anyway thankfully the new arrivals for spring/summer have less of a bite on them, well I think they can give you a nasty suck at least.

Frogs.

tiny green frogs..

in their thousands...

With the rice fields that surround our apartment flooded our nights are now a chorus of croaks and replies.

I actually quite like our little green neighbours (and I don't mean the old man next door BOOM BOOM!) as they don't try to bite, they don't want to eat all the food in your house, drink your blood, don't have sharp corners or make your skin crawl unlike most other animals in Japan. In fact the only two times I have been surprised by a frog was whilst in the shower (I just presume like most citizens of my village they were curious about naked foreigners) and jumping on my hands whilst I rode a bike (this may have been an elaborate plan to make me crash hmmm maybe they're not so friendly after all hmmm)

oh and today I saw a snake and a big one at that. As the only, in the wild, snake I've seen was the tiny grass snake in my garden; seeing a poisonous big snake was kind of cool; sadly it was road kill......I would take a picture for you, but really if you'd like to see a picture of road kill, that's what the Internets for people....