The Great Toad Rescue

My husband was supposed to be in the yard mowing, so why was he suddenly standing, shouting, at the front door? Then I realized what he was saying: "Do you want to come and see a tiny toad?"

And of course, I did! I quickly grabbed my camera and a handy cup. My husband had been mowing by the road, and there about three feet from the road sat a tiny toad, a bit bigger than a quarter. Or rather, it HOPPED.

How my husband missed it with the mower, we'll never know. Toad good luck, I guess. But once he spotted it, he called me in to assist on the rescue. I kneeled down and held out the cup, and the toad obligingly hopped into it. (The toad was just FULL of hops!)

I ran into the backyard with my hands over the cup, and placed the tiny toad at the edge of my butterfly garden, where it hopped to freedom. The release site was near the little toad house I bought at the arts fest years ago, and also close to the water bowl for the birds (the site of the great Dancing Girls hot tub party earlier in the summer).

After he was done mowing, my husband asked me where I had put the little toad, and when I told him, he put out a much smaller swimming pool for it. Blue, to match the toad house. You know, in case our toady friend didn't feel safe in the much BIGGER pool.

And so it was that a toad was rescued from the whirling blades of the mower on a late August afternoon by my husband, with an assist by me. It takes a village, doesn't it?

Toad hospitality: we can has it! :-)

The soundtrack for this image of the rescued toad, relaxing in the cup before I freed it in the butterfly garden, is U2, with Love Rescue Me, from Rattle and Hum. Here is an additional pretty awesome version that features U2 and blues legend B.B. King.

Possibly related: The Rescue of the Lol-Frog-Burglar.