Garden visitors/Intruders!
A big fat toad has moved in, I don’t mean in the house, I mean in the garden of course. Which is bad news for the slugs and snails, good news for me because my plants get a better chance of survival but really bad news for My hubby!
Why? I hear you ask……… because he takes the dogs out for their wee in the garden at night. They go between 8-9 pm and then again just before he comes up to bed.
They are really naughty for him when they get a scent that something is in the garden as well as them. Their noses go down and away they go, up and down, side to side, in fact it resembles me a bit when I am vacuuming the stairs!
They go deaf too, it’s as if all senses have merged into the smelling one, They track the whole journey that the toad has made, they know where he came from and more importantly, where he is now!
We have a monitor in the bedroom that is wired to 4 security cameras around the house and when my hubby takes them out I switch it on to watch the shenanigans in the garden, it’s better than T.V. I laugh more anyway!
Minnie and Maisie totally ignore him until they are satisfied that the toad has gone elsewhere. If they do find it, then the fun really begins. I’m almost tempted to go downstairs and get popcorn and ice cream to watch the show, its that entertaining. I would also be tempted to send in the recordings to You’ve been framed if I knew how to work the security recording system but sadly I don’t.
When we moved in this house where we live now, it had a little pond in the back garden and I thought ‘how sweet’ it had quite a few fish in too. We had never had a pond before, never even considered it and I was really looking forward to relaxing on a chair on a summer evening, glass of wine in hand watching them swim around. You get the picture.
At that time we had a Great Dane called Archie and two Old English Sheepdogs called Bunty & Lottie. All dreams about the idyllic pond shattered after our first week of living there! Archie decided to try and catch the fish and so did the hungry seagulls! Then the cats came a calling and I was that stressed that I would get up one morning and the pond would be empty! I tried to make it safe by covering it with mesh and I thought I had cracked it! Then, to my horror, After being away for a couple of days we came back to find the lawn full of frogs! As much as I wouldn’t hurt them, I was terrified of them. They must have all ‘hatched’ out in the pond!
At first I thought the garden was full of poo piles! I thought all the local cats had moved in while we had been away and used our lawn as a litter tray! I was foaming at the mouth, I was pointing to the garden and then pointing at my husband to look outside! No words would come out of my mouth until I saw the ‘poo piles’ moving and then I found my voice. I didn’t realise It could reach that high, maybe I should audition for X factor!
Anyway, I feared the frogs and I feared for their lives, the dog’s couldn’t enjoy the garden and neither could I. If Archie got to a frog before I could grab him he would swallow it down whole. I had witnessed this once a few years previous when we were out walking, I spied a frog just as we approached it and Archies head went down, I thought to sniff it. He lifted his head back up and ….no frog. Then he did a big swallow and I dropped his lead, squealed, jumped around a bit squigdigling ( that might not actually be a real word, it might be one of my own ?)
I took his collar from around his throat and wrapped his lead (luckily it was extendable) around his belly because I didn’t want to ‘squish’ the frog if he was jumping around Archies throat trying to get back out! I wanted to give it a chance. And then headed back home all the time worrying about the poor little frog. I had a nightmare that night about it! Sadly it definitely died because when Archie went to the toilet the next day, it was a frog shaped poo! I couldn’t pick it up, I had to get my hubby to (just in case it jumped!)
So I couldn’t risk it, the pond, fish and frogs all had to go for their own safety. I made my hubby go out with several buckets to round up all the frogs and we took them to a local brook. We advertised the fish and pond and someone came and took them. Then I filled in the pond hole and that was that!
Thank goodness I did because goodness knows what M & M would have been like!
This toad lives in our garden and has been here a few years, I’m scared of him but I’m happy for him to be here. I look out for him when I’m weeding or cutting the grass and I know Minnie and Maisie wouldn’t hurt him on purpose because they are as scared of him as me! But if he is out on the lawn when they go out, they crawl on their bellies almost goading the other one to go first. You know the sort of thing when your little and scared and with a friend and your pushing your friend forward and your friend is running behind you thrusting you forward? Well that’s what M&M do! Then when the toad jumps….well you’ve never seen anything quite like it! M&M jump too and end up jumping on top of each other and scare each other more. I laugh that much I cry, it is real entertainment! But I do fear that they may accidentally jump on toady in their panic so I don’t like to let them out if I see him first.
We also have a hedgehog that lives in the garden, but that’s for another day ?
OMG I hope Hector the hedgehog doesn’t eat toady!
Sisterly love … Or partners in crime!