Toadie's Back!

“Toadie’s back!” the girls said with excitement after I showed them who had finally returned.

This is the third or fourth year in a row that we have had a resident toad in front of our house. I’m not positive, but based on the increase in size every year I think this may actually be the same toad. He (or she - but the girls are pretty sure it’s a boy since it pees on you if you pick it up, and only boys would do something like that) likes to live in our flower pots and boxes.

I first spotted the toad in the dark one night when I was walking up to our front door and something moved on the ground in front of me. I jumped back and nearly landed in the Hydrangea’s. After I calmed down and turned the porch light on I saw the toad. I called everyone over to see it and we watched it head off into the front gardens to go hunting.

After that we saw the toad several other times, usually at dusk. We also noticed that one of our flower pots had a hole dug in the dirt. We wondered if the toad was making the hole. Then we saw that the hole was filled in most mornings. Pretty soon we saw the pattern, and then one day we saw a pair of eyes sticking out of the dirt. The girls thought this was pretty neat, and named the toad “Toadie”.

That first year the flower pot was just a small plastic pot sitting in front of the porch growing some Morning Glories. We eventually had to evict Toadie for fear of him freezing when the weather turned cold. I have heard that some toads and frogs actually freeze in the ground and thaw out once spring comes. But the thought of my girls finding a Toadie popsicle wasn’t very appealing.

The second year Toadie moved to a larger pot up on the porch. This pot was a large round but shallow pot, kind of like an oversized saucer. Toadie shared this pot with some Hen and Chicks. Every morning when we left for school or work we would look and see if the hole was covered up or not, and thus whether or not Toadie was in the pot. He usually was.

At the end of the summer that second year, we didn’t have to evict Toadie. He left on his own.

Last year we looked for Toadie and didn’t see him right away. He wasn’t in any of the pots. Then we saw him one night out hunting in the garden. The next day we checked the pots again but still no sign of Toadie. This went on for a little while - we would see him occasionally in the evening but never saw where he was staying. Then one day we noticed some holes next to the porch in a sandy area. Sure enough, once we knew where to start looking we found Toadie with just his eyes sticking out of the sand.

Then something really neat happened one day. I happened to be out by myself and noticed Toadie just sitting on the ground, near one of his holes. I kept watching, wondering if I would finally see him go into the hole and bury himself. But he just sat there… and sat there. I was about to leave him alone when I noticed he was sitting further into the ground then before. As I watched, he seemed to shrug his body and sort of fidget a little. Then he slowly shrugged the dirt out from under him, making a small doughnut of dirt around himself. As he did this, he was getting lower and lower into the ground the whole time. Then the dirt doughnut collapsed back on top of him, and it was as if he had never been there. The ground covering Toadie blended into the rest of the area seamlessly. All that was left were a pair of eyes. As I watched, the ground swelled slightly, relaxed, and the eyes were gone too. Pretty neat. I wonder if our Special Forces could learn that trick? “Okay men, now it’s time to learn ‘the toad’. First you lay on your belly…”

Last year after it started getting cold we didn’t see any sign of Toadie. This spring and summer we didn’t see any sign of him either, until a week or two ago. Then we noticed some holes in one of our window boxes. We don’t have these window boxes up where they should be, but down on the ground. They are full of some very nice, moist, soft potting soil. Apparently this is what Toadie likes. We kept watching for him, but didn’t see him - just his holes.

Then, just a day or two ago I saw him sitting in the window box. I called everyone outside, and the girls immediately went over to touch him and see how he is doing. He seems to be doing just fine because he is huge! If this is the same toad we’ve been seeing for the last few years, he has certainly grown up.

The girls are very excited to have him back, and we keep reminding them not to play with him too much or he might leave. For the last few mornings (and throughout the day) they keep asking to go out and check on Toadie…. And touch Toadie… but they don’t try to pick him up. Not because they’re scared. They actually like picking up frogs and toads. They just don’t like to get peed on. That’s why they always ask Daddy to pick up toads first. After the toad has emptied its bladder on Daddy it’s safe for the girls to pick up.

Last night when I got home from work the girls were running around the front garden area with sticks, trying to ‘rescue’ Toadie. He was under a bush and they were afraid he was stuck so they were using the sticks to move him out from under the bush. I’m pretty sure he was just trying to find some dinner and probably didn’t appreciate a dull stick prodding him, but [cliché alert] it was probably “better than a sharp stick in the eye”.

We’ll have to wait and see if sticks around after that ‘rescue’!