The Incident Involving the Cat & the Tree Frog

By Autumn Moore, Abagio co-inventor

While April McCoy was creating the art for Abagio, right around the time that the tree frog theme was being finalized, I made a wonderful discovery. I was putting Isaiah, my yellow Labrador Retriever, out to play in the back pasture one morning and decided to pick some more ripe figs off the fig tree. Lo and behold, there on one of the broad fig leaves, was a real live tree frog, with the bulbous, sticky toes and all!

Mr. Froggy stayed for a couple of days in the tree. Over the period of a couple of days, I photographed the frog several times. Every time I came out, he was still on the tree, but had moved to a new location. A few times, when I got close for a close-up shot, he would actually pop up and pose, like he was some kind of Top Frog celebrity eyeballing an intruding paparazzi.

During one photo session, my black cat, Aja, plopped down next to me. Aja usually jumps onto my shoulders while I am working in the garden, and hangs her head down to watch. But this time Aja was preoccupied with something in the fig tree. Mr. Froggy sat on his leaf, seemingly oblivious to the young feline, who was staring up at him and licking her lips.

As I moved in for a closer shot, the frog suddenly leapt off the leaf and landed on the cat’s back. Aja nearly had a coronary and took off like a rocket, sprinting across the yard. Mr. Froggy hung on for dear life, bouncing along with his sticky toes holding fast to the cat’s fur.

About halfway across the yard, the frog regained his senses and leapt off, much to Aja’s relief. Needless to say, I was bent double, whooping and wheezing in laughter. When I finally regained my composure, I decided I had enough tree frog photos and carefully placed a thoroughly bewildered Mr. Froggy back into his favorite fig tree.