It’s okay, the toad’s okay, he’ll be fine.
A few days ago, the toad was in an accident involving my foot. Since I hadn’t see him in a few days, I thought he had gone off to die. I felt bad about it, but it was an accident.
And then I saw him again yesterday evening, and just like before, he paused long enough for me to give him a shower when I watered the nearby containers, then hopped away from me and my foot.
I also startled a rabbit yesterday when I went out the back door. He was eating something in my bed of hostas. Bad rabbit!
And over the weekend I saw a little meadow vole run across the patio. They are bad for the garden, too!
I hope that’s all I find out there, but I suspect there are a lot of critters making a good living in my garden, right behind my back and sometimes right in front of me!
Who’s living in your garden, right in front of you? Hopefully not rabbits or voles. Hopefully you have a garden full of toads and birds and other good critters!
No fauna in my city garden, but I do have little centipedes. They seem rather benign as I don’t have any problems that I can trace back to them.
However, in my community garden, I’ve taken serious losses from a gopher and I’m this close to buying a Macabee trap (he said, with index finger and thumb held 1 cm apart).
Why does he have a white line down his back? I thought you were going to say you cleaved him in half with your hoe.
Actually I wish I had some toads, frogs, turtles, and a great blue heron. I used to have voles but they disappeared after the dubious gardener put some kind of poison wheat down their little burrows. Which I thought was rather mean.
Oh, I do have a rabbit hanging around the backyard but since I have no veggies we’re getting along fine. He helps mow the grass.
I also stepped on a toad earlier this year and feared I had fatally injured him. However, he was just sort of stunned or in shock because after I splashed him with cool water and put him in the shade, he woke up and hopped off.
I know just how you felt. Best regards, Jon on 7-26-07
http://mississippigarden.blogspot.com
Unfortunately we always have a lot of voles as our garden is next to a field (I already lost some rose shrubs and other plants). But apart from slugs and snails (this year we have an invasion of them), sometimes a rabbit and a fox, we have a lot of birds, butterflies and just now a hedgehog family strolling around.
Have a nice day!
Barbara
I know you have seen the tree frog in the birdhouse posted a while ago but, in addition, I see quite a few garden snakes, yuk, but they do eat a lot of bugs and frogs. I did see one with a huge frog trapped in his mouth but as I ran to grab the camera, Tucker scared him away! Also, the deer which are very destructive and mice. As you said, who knows what is right there hiding as I walk by! Glad the little guy survived to shower again!
Besides the usual critters that seem to enjoy my yard, I recently discovered that I have bats. When I go out at dusk, I can see a few flying over my pool and hopefully eating their fill of mosquitoes.
It’ll be almost impossible to get a picture of them in the low light though. 🙁
I’m happy that the toad is doing well.
Hi Carol, no voles but I have rabbits who love ornamental grasses and just about anything else! Squirrels can clean out a bird feeder in two hours. Ugghhh.
Hey, I laughed at your toad story! I remove them from the pond skimmer every day – I sometimes set them on a rock or I gently toss them into the pond…once my aim was bad and the poor little toad smacked onto a rock. I think he’s the one I see with a very crooked leg.
Here in Austin we are inundated with crickets right now. I mean, everywhere, all over shop windows and yards. When I mowed the other day, they were jumping out from in front of the tractor and then birds were swooping down to get a tasty meal. They are even shutting off the lights on the tower at the University for the next two weekends so as not to attract the crickets.
We have a new turtle, thanks to ‘friends’ who brought him over for the kids. The last turtle they had escaped & ran away from home
I have rabbits and a woodchuck who is visiting under my shed. I think he’s the one who ate my cone flowers. I don’t see toads but hope they are there.
Lots of creatures live in our garden … chipmonks, lots of birds, insects, butterflies, spiders and even the rabbit at the very back. We have a large brush pile along part of the back of the property and it shelters many creatures. Also somewhere way back there is a groundhog and we even have a raccoon visit from time to time.
Wildlife is wonderful.
It’s good to know that mr Toad is doing well. At Bliss we have a lot of critters: toads, frogs, hedgehogs, all kinds of birds, cats, people but unfortunately also a whole herd of slugs! Gaaaaaaaa!
Hi Carol,
I have:
–rabbits – eating flowers in the shade garden
–deer – eating roses
–moles – undermining my Colonial kitchen garden pathways
–birds – pecking at my tomatoes
–snakes – scaring me when I go for my walk in the morning
–squirrels – getting into my bird feeders
–raccoons – knocking down my bird feeders
–foxes – generally scaring me
We do live in the country. Generally, I find it all interesting, if not amusing. I want to put in a pond next summer, but am a bit worried about attracting more snakes. To me the ideal number of snakes is
We’ve got lots of butterflies and moths, kitties of course, and that dreaded Japanese Beetle. I’ve found 12 of them in the last two weeks. Not a real problem, but still annoying when I find one and I’m always looking.
The cats do a good job of keeping mice and voles away and apparently the rabbits, too. Although maybe it’s the rubber snakes that scare them. Even the cats are scared of those! LOL.
All
Critters, critters, everywhere in all our gardens, two legged, four legged and six legged. I think we’ve got them all covered, some good, some bad, but all interesting to us!
Thanks for all the comments and stories.
Carol at May Dreams Gardens
Oh, let’s see: the occasional possum, a great horned owl, anole lizards, butterflies, wrens, mockingbirds, mourning doves, sparrows, bees, wasps, spiders, squirrels, crickets (as Bonnie pointed out), caterpillars, cicadas, dragonflies, bats, sphinx moths. No deer yet, thank goodness. I wouldn’t want to share my roses with them.
I once had a toad that lived on my deck for what I believe to be was a few years – in the evening I would look out, and there would be my dog Stanley – just lying there, with the toad next to him. They had a quiet relationship, an understanding so to speak. And then a category 5 storm (Floyd) headed our way and I had to evacuate – and at the last minute when up to my deck and dug the toad out of it’s daytime flower pot and put him in a fishbowl (with some water and soil) and evacuated him to Aiken, SC. He spent three days with us in a Comfort Inn probably wondering ‘what the hell’. Then when I released him (the storm went in further north, we had category 1 winds, so were spared) – he went hoping as fast as he could away from me and I never saw him again. So – I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m glad your toad is okay.
Oh, my garden is a buffet for all sorts of things, no doubt!
i’ve got at least one rabbit. i see him every now and then, but we’ve just moved here so i’m still in my honeymoon phase. and a few squirrels, a mockingbird and a family of sapsuckers who don’t bother the garden but do wake us up every morning. i’m glad your toad is ok… i don’t know what the white line is, but that is exactly the same kind of toad we had in my yard when i was young. his whole family looks like that; i promise you haven’t horrifically scarred him.
and i think i love you pam, who rescued your dog’s toad from a hurricane.
Oh, sweet little toad. I am glad he is okay.