dancing horses

dancing horses

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Toad of Toad Hall?

When you have a barn you start to realize how attractive it is to many of the creatures that live around. Mice and rats of course. But there are others.

This year we had barn swallows. The would roost up in the rafters and twitter at me when I came in. As they got used to me they became less agitated but let me know when I was bothering them. It seems that swallows do not like to listen to the radio first thing in the morning. And the night I came in after midnight to check on Irish they were quite peeved. I could hear them muttering up above me:
"what's she doing NOW?"
"oh who turned on those lights, they hurt my eyes?"
"oh it's her"
"my god, doesn't she know we have to get up at 4 a.m.?! How RUDE!'

Rodents and birds I was prepared for. What I didn't expect was toads. When I first spied a toad hanging around I was warned him (her?) to watch out for Martin and Belle. I needn't of worried. After a few inspections they gave the toad a wide berth. It seems that toads secrete a noxious substance so that predators will leave them alone. So became used to seeing them around. I did have to catch one that hopped into my tack room when I had the door open. I caught her (him?) in a bucket but she refused to leave the bucket when I brought it outside. So I tipped it over and left. Later I saw that the toad was gone but had left behind a present- she pooped in my bucket! Who know that toad poop was so big?

The toad finally took up residence in the shed where I keep my sawdust. I would come to get some, see him (her?) nestled in the dust and pick around him. After a while he would just move to the side and I would about my business. I don't know how smart toads are but this one seemed to figure out that if he just went to the side of the shed I left him alone. There were a few times when I scooped up a fork full of sawdust and when I dumped in the wheelbarrow there was the toad- looking very very grumpy about the whole thing.
I had to be careful - I was afraid that I would stab him accidentally.

Now the weather is cooler and I have seen him (her?) for a while. I suspect that she's hibernating somewhere and dreaming of all the flies that the horses will bring come spring.


isn't she cute?


1 comment:

  1. Yeah toad poop is huge... and nasty lol. We have tons of them lol.

    Oh and the nasty stuff they secrete doesn't always work. My grandma's dog used to... play?... with them. I was a kid so I don't remember if the dog ate them, played with them, killed them, or what, but regardless it caused the dog to have yellow foam come out of it's mouth. It was really gross. The dog was okay... not sure about the toad. I'm so glad my dogs leave them alone!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for leaving a comment. I love the feedback.