When I was younger, my dad and I used to go for long walks down the gravel roads behind his house on a ridge in eastern Kentucky. Occasionally, big trucks would rumble past to check the oil rigs, but for the most part, the roads were deserted except for us and the dogs. Sometimes we would chat, but mostly we just walked in comfortable silence, looking for various bits of flora and fauna and pointing out slight changes in the landscape—a fallen tree, new blossoms on the wildflowers, a snake hole, a possum den. We’d been taking these walks all my life, and any flowers, trees, or birdcalls that I can identify now are because my dad taught them to me then. I always took great delight in spotting something before he did. Particularly if I knew what I was looking at. Wild sumac, dutchman’s britches, lady’s slipper, jack-in-the-pulpit, rhododendron, trillium, queen anne’s lace, black eyed susans. Once when I was standing on the front porch ready to take off on one of our epic journeys, a bobcat slinked out of the woods, crossed the road, and stood just behind a tree in the front yard. Slowly, so as not to spook her, I retreated to the door and stuck my head inside to call quietly to Dad. He came in from the hallway just in time to see her take off, bolting across the road and beyond the treeline.

Of all the walks, there is one that stands out from the rest. It was early spring and the frogs had started to hatch. The pond was inundated with them, and some of the potholes even became so large and collected enough water that they transformed into miniature ecosystems, teeming with tadpoles and smaller frogs. Little tide pools in the middle of the road. Despite my best efforts, Dad was always better at catching the frogs than I was. If even a shadow crossed the lip of the pothole-pond, they’d leap out of the water, into the grass, and out of sight. He was quick about it, and would rush around, flanking them from the back and scooping them up in his cupped hands before they knew it was coming. He always turned them over to me, and although some struggled more than others, sometimes I could walk for a quarter of a mile with one sitting calmly in my palm.

As the sun started to set behind the foothills, we began to make our way back to the house. With the low sun in our faces, I was convinced I could sneak up on a cluster of them and grab one myself; we came up to a wide, shallow pool and I squatted down at the edge. Sure enough, there was a small, still frog right in the middle. Delighted, I reached in and slid one hand underneath and cupped the other lightly over the top. Slowly, I removed my top hand and brought him up close to my face. He moved a little, and at first I didn’t notice anything wrong. Bit by bit, though, I began to see that the pieces didn’t fit together quite right. One of his eyeballs hung from the socket, squashed to the side of his abdomen. He was missing most of a back leg and something gray stuck out from his mouth. He wasn’t perched tightly on my hand like they usually did, but instead splayed out flat, belly and throat on my palm. Gradually, my brain registered horror and disgust, and utter sorrow at the pathetic mess that was literally falling apart in my hand. I bent down, dropped him quickly back into the muddy puddle. “He was—” I started, looking up at my dad. He was still looking down at the puddle where the frog kicked feebly with one leg. “I don’t think he’s gonna make it, Pete,” he said quietly. I wiped my hand on my pants and pretended not to be fazed. “Yeah.” “Probably one of those damn oil trucks,” he continued. “Yeah,” I said again. We stood in silence for a second longer, and then I walked back over to where he stood, next to the edge of the puddle. I reached in with my hand and stirred up mud from the bottom until the murky water completely clouded the frog from view. “You ready to head back?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said, and we started to walk up the road to the house. “I’m ready.”