Gimme Shelter

** Note to visitors: There are articles about Fuzzy the toad appearing in June, July and August, 2014 editions of desktodirt.  The toads in this piece are probably his offspring. How cool! **

This past Memorial Day we had the worst storm in a record-breaking six-month’s of them.

In the early morning darkness the howling wind lifted the cover off my barbeque grill and threw it nearby. It looked like a tangled rubber sheet snagged in the middle of a rushing stream.

Despite the continued pelting from torrential rain I ran outside and picked it up. Ready to quickly lasso it back on I stopped: a young toad was next to the bottom of the grill squatting solo atop a short piece of 2×4 on the ground.

Amidst the aura from an outside light I imagined it praying that the rising water wouldn’t sweep him away. I realized that putting the cover back on the barbeque might also send him tumbling into the flood, so I saved this task until the storm passed.

Trusting his decision to wait it out on a precarious island of wood, he was left to the vagaries of Nature.

The next couple of nights brought a respite from all the wet and wind; I kept looking for the youngster wondering if it survived.

Not seeing it anywhere near the barbeque my next focal point was the same it has been for close to six years: the bottom of the door that I use to enter and exit the Shack. And sure enough there he was, on the left, sitting calmly. [The image below of the subject toad was not made during the storm but anticipating one, and very near the door as well.]

When I first put up the building I discovered – for reasons I still haven’t figured out – the toad clan uses my door’s threshold as a nocturnal rest-stop. That’s why I avoid opening that door after darkness until I see if one is there. Abandoning that caution would probably lead to toadicide. And why would I want to do that to these gentle, live-and-let-live creatures?

I am amazed at their solitariness and how the extended family cleverly adapts to other safe-havens: ensconced in a worn, rumpled blue tarp that covers an outside appliance; burrowed under the shallow rim of a Homer’s orange bucket; a juvenile suction-cupped to glass to avoid the torrent below.

And I am especially cautious in the driveway and on the parking slab where on numerous occasions I have stopped the truck and gently ushered them out of the way.

It could be said that I am fostering their squatter’s status – and my corresponding behavior- by proclaiming Toadlandia as shown in the opening image.

I consider dedicating a few measly square feet of land an offbeat, appropriate thank you for the pleasure of having them around.