Sunday, June 22, 2014

Loads and Loads of Tiny Toads

As I have noted before, I have a fondness for toads, but not like that. At this time of year, newly metamorphosed little toads emerge from a pond on site (in some communities, traffic is redirected when the toadlings put their tadpolish ways behind them and take to the land. The site I typically work at is toad heaven- there is plenty of green space for my batrachian buddies to live their toadly lives.

Last night, I found a half dozen little toads in the stairwell to one of our buildings. While the area is a perfect place for a toad to establish itself, being cool and shady, and full of delicious bugs, it's a dead end for a small toad- they can get down the stairway but they can't get up. I was able to coax the little fellers onto my hand with a gentle finger nudge, and I relocated them to a pachysandra patch. Here's one of my little transportees:




This is not the first time I've had to do a stairwell intervention, and it probably won't be the last.

The post title is the first line of a couplet that I wrote, when I was writing short bits of doggerel in alarming profusion:

Loads and loads of tiny toads,
Live by the sides of country roads.


The same period of bizarre creative ferment also produced the following:

Crepuscular critters give the jitters,
But creatures of night fill me with fright.


It was a passing phase... thankfully!

7 comments:

  1. Last night, I found a half dozen little toads in the stairwell to one of our buildings.

    That is just the beginning. Your life slowly segues into a Clark Ashton Smith horror story.

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  2. omg so cute. It reminds me of one of the very few times I wanted to put on my grown-up voice and ream out some kids--it was at a park with a pond hosting squeejillions of tadpoles. Some of us were tossing in bits of bread, and watching tadpoles eat bread is ridiculously satisfying. And then some a-hole kids tossed in stones. I dunno why more folks can't be nice to our amphibian planet cohabitants.

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  3. That is just the beginning. Your life slowly segues into a Clark Ashton Smith horror story.

    I think it segues into a Clark Ashton Smith buddy comedy like The Door to Saturn.

    I too, found a tiny toad yesterday.

    Aren't they darling?

    Perhaps you have found the home of the Toads of The Short Forest

    I should work in such a groovy place!

    And then some a-hole kids tossed in stones. I dunno why more folks can't be nice to our amphibian planet cohabitants.

    I hope those kids got a gazillion mosquito bites.

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  4. one of the things maeve likes best about spring is terrorizing the tiny toads in our backyard...but now it's bunny season, so she's all over that instead...

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