Gardening

A Toad Friend

toad

We have quite a population of toads at our house, which is a good thing. Anywhere there’s a nook or cranny we can find a toad or two….or sometimes a whole colony as we did when we were building the beds around Chris’ man-cave. There had been a pile of wood and other miscellaneous items on one corner of the house and as we moved the debris out of the way we found a small colony of toads. We carefully carried them over to a different section of the yard where they would be able to hang out undisturbed.

This little juvenile toad was hoping around the columbines as I was taking photos of them the other day. It let me hold it long enough to snap a photo, then promptly peed on me and jumped down. I love seeing wildlife in our garden and yard. We also have a decent population of American green tree frogs that camoflauge themselves among the vegetation. Soon in the summer we’ll be able to hear the sounds of all of the frogs and toads in the evening—often through the walls and doors and into the house! We’re already hearing them to some extent, but not in the chorus of noise during the height of summer.

With all of the wildlife we see in the yard or on the pond (bald eagles, a lot, of late) Chris bought a journal so we could make notes of some of our sightings. I’d like to keep a tab on even some of the smaller occurences so we can see changes from year to year.

Seeing toads and frogs brings back a memory I have with Zoe back when we were still at my parent’s house between hiking and our field jobs. I think she was about 2.5 and loved being outside then (still does but not nearly as much—there’s bugs out there!). I was trying to help my mom weed some of the side yard and Zoe really wanted to help. She kept insisting on taking a ‘poker’, a weeding tool, from me. While we were out working one evening Chris found a toad near where the firewood is stacked. Zoe liked it but was still a little icked out by it. Eventually when she came looking for the poker I ended up telling her that the frog took her poker and the one I had was all there was. Being only 2.5 she believed it and went around telling everyone ‘Froggie took my poker!’. Yes, I am a bad aunt! Now, ‘Froggie took my poker’ is one of the Zoeisms that Chris and I say when we see something, like toads and frogs, to remind us of her from back then.

I don’t think she’s nearly as gullible now!

I asked Chris which toad he thought this was and he said, without hesitation, “Gulf Coast toad”. I replied, “How do you know? Did you look it up?” He got a little frustrated and just said, “I just know”. So, there you have it, on the authority of Chris, it’s a Gulf Coast toad.

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