I mentioned in another thread that Monday I found a little toad in my garden. There he is at left.
I'd gone out to check on the basil, which dies off in the heat, but sometimes revives in cool spells. And there he was, an eastern American toad, about three inches long, soaking up the moisture (they don't drink but absorb water through the skin) from the weekend rains.
Toads and frogs get a bad rap in Western culture. We all know about the plague of frogs in Exodus, and things go downhill for our amphibians friends from there.
Toads appear in fairy tales, like the Perrault story, "Diamonds and Toads." If you don't know it, a nice girl gives a mysterious old lady a drink and is blessed so that every time she speaks, diamonds fall from her lips. The nice girl's bad sister refuses the same old woman and is cursed. Toads and snakes fall from her lips. The bad sister is then driven into the woods and dies all alone.
Milton said that Satan squatted next to Eve like a toad. Shakespeare called Richard III a "poisonous bunch-backed toad." Or consider the toad-like Jabba the Hut from Star Wars.
A "toady" is another word for a sycophant. It comes from "toad eater," a geek who would eat toads at patent medicine shows. Toads were thought to be poisonous if eaten (and my little toad might indeed be dangerous to a cat or dog who ate it), so the toad eater would take the patent medicine and be cured. Thus becoming a toady.
I think toads get a bad rap. I used to see lots of of them around, and I always got a kick out of seeing them placidly changing color from charcoal to light gray, depending on the heat and humidity. In recent years they've gotten scarcer. Or maybe I just don't garden as much. But when I do see a toad, it reassures me that my garden is healthy enough to support life, and it urges me to do a better job taking care of it.
And, yes, of course, there is a patron saint of toads, St. Ulphia, a French nun from the 700s. According to the story, the toads made too much noise croaking around her hermitage, so she told them to pipe down. And, miraculously, they did. According to legend, the toads in that area were very quiet forever after, but became louder if moved away from the area. Ulphia is often depicted praying with her quiet toads around her.
Fanciful legend, maybe. But the story reminds us that God made every creature and loves them all, no matter what kind of stories we make up to cast them as villains. So here's to St. Ulphia (feast day January 31 in case you want to write it down) and may she pray with us to ask God's blessing on our toads, ponds, and gardens, and all the life that lives there.
Toads are okay. I like them outside, but not in my bedroom ( could one of my brothers have been responsible for one being there?)
ReplyDeleteMy mom was a protector of toads, "...because they don't hurt anybody, and they eat mosquitoes".) If she saw one in the yard on a hot day, she would turn the garden hose on for it.
Too bad I can't find the cartoon with the verse of " All Creatures Great and Small" that no one sings. It was about the snakes and spiders and toads, etc., " the Lord God made them all"
The toad I remember from literature was Mr. Toad in "The Wind in the Willows".
Interesting about St. Ulphia.
I have seen dogs try to pick up toads with their mouth, but they only do it once. They must taste very bitter.
DeleteBufotoxin. I guess it can be damaging to dogs who eat a whole toad. Once I brought some coleus in pots from the porch to try to winter over. When the pots warmed up, some little toads crawled out. Cats poked at their hind ends to make them hop, but didn't try to eat them. Pots went back outdoors with the toads.
DeleteWe have toads in our garden areas. I usually don't see more than one per garden area unless it is in a long and narrow garden. Maybe they are territorial?
ReplyDeleteI usually see them in the Spring when I am preparing the garden. We engage in a little dance in which I gently disturb them so that they move ahead of the area in which I am working and then off to the side and then back around to the area in which I have finished. It helps that I use a lot of the weeds that I pull as a grown cover to retain moisture in the soil. They eventually find their way to an area which I have finished. I presume they are in the garden all the year around, I just do less disturbing of the ground at other times and so do not notice them.
I liked your mention of the toad in the other thread, and am glad you decided to start a new thread. And thank you for introducing us to St. Ulphia!
ReplyDeleteMy wife is the gardener. Until this year, I was the mower of the lawn, but I don't recall ever seeing a toad, although according to the web, the same species of toad (American toad) lives around here as is pictured above. I will ask her if she ever sees them. (Or snakes - I bet they would enjoy a juicy American toad for dinner!)
Ursula K. Leguin, the late science fiction writer, put up a fascinating and funny story about her encounter with a rattlesnake. https://www.ursulakleguin.com/blog/22-first-contact
DeleteWe see toads in Maryland. For several years a toad sat on the steps by our front door every night to catch the bugs that were attracted by our front porch light, which we kept on all night.
DeleteOne summer he didn’t come back and we missed him ( or her). The toad got used to us going in and out and stopped running away when we came in at night. We weren’t a threat.
Please pray that all goes well between now and sept 3. I go home on the 28th to prepare for my husband’s return. He will fly home on Sept 3 with one of our sons. I’m happy but also very scared of an emergency between now and then.
Maybe our toad will return too.
Thank you Jean.
Anne, praying that all goes well for your move back home. I'm glad to hear that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that you and your husband can return to your own home.
DeleteJean, thanks for that Ursula Leguin link. I'm glad they didn't kill the rattler, and I am sure you are tickled about where they chose to release it.
DeleteI once tried to get rid of a bee's nest hanging from a branch of a tree in our front yard by covering every inch of my body - except for a very narrow slit for my eyes so I could see - with thick clothing, climbing a stepladder so I could reach the nest, holding a plastic garbage bag open beneath it, and snipping off the branch from which the nest dangled. The hope was, the nest would plop into the garbage bag, and I could close the bag before any angry bees figured out what was going on. In the event, the nest didn't hit the opening of the bag cleanly - it sort of bounced off my hand and landed on the ground. Fortunately for me, the nest seemed to be abandoned, except for one bee which came darting out as soon as I snipped the branch - and made a literal bee-line for my exposed eyes. Somehow I didn't fall off the ladder, and didn't get stung.
Only partially tickled. I personally would not dump dangerous animals onto someone else's property. But there is something literarily satisfying about the fat cats having forces of nature thrust upon them if only to demonstrate that they don't control the damn universe. In one of my more satisfying fantasies, the Mar-a-Lago golf courses owned by your party's Fearless Leader are infested with alligators and black mold has taken over the golden ballrooms--all due to global warming which he keeps denying.
DeleteI patched up all the places in our porch roof that the wasps were using for building nests. They started a new nest further away. I am too decrepit to get on a ladder and try to do anything about it. Plus it's kind of interesting. A lady in my knitting group showed a photo of a fake wasp nest she crocheted and hung off her eaves. Said it fooled the wasps and they have not nested there since she hung it. So maybe I will try that.
Keep 'em coming, Jean. Love the hagiography. Here in the Poconos, I see frogs, , snakes, tortoises. On a hike at the Delaware Water Gap, years ago, a copperhead surprised me. White men CAN jump.
ReplyDeleteKatherine, a friend of mine had a dog Raffles (a mutt "won" in a church raffle) who liked to pick up frogs until he started to foam at the mouth. Then he'd spit it out, wait for the effects to diminish and then pick up the frog again. Raffles was apparently an outlier dog. When his mother had guests, she'd put a little of her Valium in the dog bowl to chill him out for the duration.
May everything go well and safely for you and your husband, Jean.
Was Raffles a beagle? Nice dogs, but dumb as rocks.
DeleteWe go on spring drives to the local marsh to see if the turtles have come out and to hear the spring peepers.
Snakes don't bother me if I know they're there. But I make Raber weed the ground cover because I hate being surprised. The only venomous snakes we have in Michigan are Massasauga rattlers, but I've never seen one. Supposedly they can't kill you.
It's Anne and husband making the move, and I pray they'll make it without incident.
LOL, about winning a dog in a raffle, lately my granddaughters talked their parents into bidding on a Aussie-doodle pup in a fund raiser silent auction. Trouble with bidding on stuff, sometimes you get it. They did.
DeleteAny rattlesnake can kill you if you don't get medical attention and enough venom got into you. The venom is a combo of hemotoxins and neurotoxins. Rattlesnakes are common where I grew up. Sorry wildlife lovers, but if they are around a house or livestock, they meet a quick death.
DeleteTo Jean: No, I believe Raffles was a pure mutt. My theory is that all the genes they try to breed out of dogs had to go somewhere so they ended up in ole Raffles.
DeleteTo Katherine: Yes, never take a chance on something you don't want because you'll win it. It's a universal law.
Also, I figure rattlesnake meat probably tastes like alligator meat which means it tastes like whatever sauce you put on it. I ate alligator at an Orlando restaurant so that, if an alligator ever eats me, we're even. Same for rattlesnakes but I'd probably have to go to east Texas to get that delicacy and I have no desire to go there.
Haha, Raffles sounds like the kind of misfit pet we would end up with. But I have never had to enter a raffle to "win" one because cats just show up here and make themselves at home.
DeleteA rattlesnake would not last long around my house, I'll clue ya. Raber's nutty nephew and his wife keep exotic snakes in their bathtub. They sent us a Christmas card with their two toddlers and everyone holding snakes around the tree one year. Guess where I don't visit ...
My Aunt Rose had a baby alligator, maybe given up by one of her grandchildren. Kept it in a bathtub after it got too big for the aquarium. Kept it until it was a meter long and then finally gave it to the Aquarium in Camden, NJ (since out of business). The thing actually recognized her and didn't attack her. Knew on which side its bread was buttered, I guess. I think all animals are smarter than given credit for. Maybe us, too.
DeleteStanley, glad your aunt gave the alligator to the Aquarium. Some people just turn them loose in a river or lake. Bad idea.
DeleteBrain Glitch. I meant "Anne".
ReplyDelete