Watching You Watching Me

After dinner last evening I went out to the garden, hoe in hand, to plant some cucumbers and dill along one of the arbors. As soon as I started to work the soil, I saw this little guy looking up at me from the other side of the arbor.




I'm not knowledgeable about toads so I don't know his proper name. But I do know toads are welcome in my garden. As far as I can tell, they do no harm to my plants and they eat unwelcome insects and slugs.

He watched me as I hoed the soil, watched me tuck the cucumber seeds into the dirt, watched me cover the seeds and tamp the dirt lightly with my rake. The entire time he just looked up at me from his little hole, not even blinking. (Do toads have eyelids? I couldn't tell.) Only his elastic throat expanded and contracted.

After I finished planting, I went back to the house for my camera and took a couple of pictures of friend Toad. Then I just squatted there and looked at him for a bit. Some people might find toads "icky" or gross. If you take some time to really watch them, you'll see their skin is a patchwork of browns, tans and greys with a mottled texture. This toad's skin had lots of baggy wrinkles, almost like an elephant's on a very small scale. Toads don't leap up and growl at you. Mostly they just want to be left alone to dig their little holes and catch a tasty meal. Seeing this toad watch me so steadily for so long, I couldn't help but wonder what he was seeing and what went on in his brain. Mentally I wished him well and thanked him for adding some extra pleasure to my evening in the garden.