Toads

That’s not a bad thing. It isn’t a curse of toads or a plague of toads. It’s just toads.

There was one rain this summer. As in it rained for real once this whole year. There have been a few sprinkles, and even a couple of measurable amounts of moisture since then. But only one real rain. It was beautiful. There were puddles everywhere. The sounds of toads croaking filled the nights following with their deafening music.

They came out of their drought induced hibernation for three or four nights.

Apparently they were very busy for those few nights.

Then they were gone again.

Every puddle left by the rain was quickly filled with tadpoles. The water hole in the horse’s pen started squirming and frothing as it dried. That was enough to make me go look. There in the puddle were more tadpoles than water. Some had small leg bumps starting to appear. None of them would be ready to hop away before the puddle dried.

So I sent the children out. They got filthy. They played. The laughter could be heard from the buildings. They scooped as many tadpoles as they could get and redistributed them to water tanks.

Now, every time we travel along our driveway we have to slow and watch carefully for toads hoping happily across. Not all from the tadpoles the children scooped up. They must have hatched everywhere. The come out when the pivots spray across the road. Whether driven out of hiding by the large water droplets or if they just enjoy hunting the bare roads, they come out and slow traffic.

The children and I both love to jump out of the car and follow them along. Maybe scooping them up for a moment to admire their big fat bellies. They’re all the same size, which makes sense if they’re from the same hatching.

We will enjoy our company while we can. Soon they will burrow back down again, cocooning themselves in a layer of sloughed off skin to preserve moisture. There they will wait for another big rain. Another chance to come out and procreate. Another time to serenade us with their beautiful music.

We’ll just have to drive very slow until then.