Watch Out For That Toad!

Sunday was Mothers' Day here in the UK. I had a lovely day thanks to my family. I got a couple of very nice Mothers' Day cards from my boys. George, the youngest got me some flowers (I love flowers) and a new bird table (bird feeder)! I was very happy with those things.

On Sunday evening, we tucked into some take away Thai food from an exquisite Thai restaurant not too terribly far away (only about 14 miles). Coming home with the food at about 8pm I was horrified at the number of toads in the road. Last night when I was making the trip into town to return some movies, again there were many toads in the road. I would hate to run over them but I'm sure I must have hit a couple. There are SO many. As they are just coming out of hibernation, they must be going onto the road for the little bit of residual heat.

I do try to miss them, but sometimes, you don't see them until it's too late. Then of course, if there is oncoming traffic, one doesn't like to swerve into the path of an approaching car just to save a toad. What I would really like is for the The Man of the Place to drive so that each time we see a toad in the road at night, the car can be stopped so that I can run out and rescue the toads from an untimely squish.

We did just that on our long walk on Sunday afternoon. There is bit of forest just up the road from us. In the middle of the trees, a gamekeeper has a nice sized pond, some rearing pens for pheasants and other gamekeeping things. Its a great place to take the dog for a walk. Its all fenced in and there will be nobody else there and we can unclip Polly from her lead for a bit.

The track going up to the pond and the pens is really rutted. The soil up there is full of clay. That means that this time of year, its so slippery and if you go through it, the tyres will make huge ruts in the road. These ruts will fill up with water, making big long puddles that are not draining very well. We wasted a lot of time on our walk cutting little channels with our wellies so that the puddles could drain.

Do you remember when you were small and you could waste a whole day making dams and them breaking them to watch the water rush out? This was very similar only the dams had already been made and filled, we just needed to do the dambuster part.

Again, there were toads in some of the puddles. I found most of them because I was walking in front. I was worried that if they didn't move and the gamekeeper came back with his big 4x4, they'd be mush. So, I picked them up to move them.

After I had picked up the first one, I realized that it was so cold the little thing could barely move. It must suck to be cold blooded in Scotland. I decided to keep it in my hand until we made it up to the big pond and warm the little thing up a bit.

We were half way up to the pond and I handed the first two toads over to Henry. This was good because it freed my hands to get the next two. By the time I got to the pond I had three new toads warming in my rapidly cooling hands. I discovered that if I held my hands up near my ears, you could hear them making tiny little clicking sounds. Then one of them started croaking. We all heard that!

I let them go at the edge of the pond. Two of the three toads had decided they liked the look of each other and were paired up. Not only was the track up to the pond and pens clear of toads for a while, we were instrumental in a pair of toads finding each other. I guess if we can ever help in any way . . .

Polly was covered in bits of wet clay and sand and soaked through when we returned. She went straight into the tub for a dog bath. I don't think she minds those now. We certainly don't mind them. Her coat is so soft after a bath and she smells a lot less doggy.