Toady Boy!

This has been the summer of toads.  Winston has been finding lots of them, and BIG ones.  When he finds them he wants to play with them, and play and play and play... I feel sorry for the toads so I make him release them back into the wild (down at the ditch).

Yesterday he found this one.  He's been telling us he wants a pet toad for his birthday, one he can keep in his room.  We keep saying emphatically "No".  Yesterday, in a bid to keep the toad from being 'loved' too much, I told Winston he could keep it for a couple of hours in a box where he could watch it all he wanted, and he could touch it but not hold it.  (I've done some research and Toads do secrete a poison through their skin - I'm not real comfortable with Winston handling them so much.)

Through a little research we learned that this particular toad is a Western Toad, and a female.  Winston chose to name her Jessie.  He tried to feed her a fly and a stinkbug, but she wasn't too interested.  She just wanted out of the box.  So after his allotted couple of hours, we took her down to the ditch and released her back into the wild.  Farewell Jessie... you were a good friend for a day!

Winston & Jessie