A Cold Front and Pictures of my Toads

I am sitting here with the air conditioner off and the windows open. It is wonderful!

Friday we had a significant cold front, after the driest August in decades. It brought lots of rain and cooler temperatures. For the next seven days at least we are forecast to have highs "only" in the upper 80s to low 90s, and lows in the high 60s. That's ten degrees cooler than it was for most of August.

My toads are probably very happy, since I haven't seen them since the rainstorm on Friday. I've got two now, and on hot days they got into the habit of burying themselves in the soil of the container plants I have on my back porch. I think it's because that soil was being kept moist while the soil in the yard was bone dry. Here we have a picture of the flat of broccoli I planted that the toads decided was a nice place to hang out. On the left of this picture is the big fat one I showed you before. On the right is a smaller one that's started hanging out with the big fat one. I don't know much about toad social behavior. Do toads have friends? How territorial are they? Do toads pair up in couples? I mean, is this a boy toad and a girl toad that want to make baby toads? That would be nice.

Can you spot the toad in this picture? This is why when I move my plants around, sometimes I am startled by toads suddently jumping out at me. They're almost invisible when they bury themselves in the soil with only the tops of their heads sticking out.

I think the toads must have gone back out in the yard since I haven't seen them in my plants since the rainstorm. The yard is nice and muddy now for them. I think in the future, when it gets hot and dry again, I might put out a pan of wet soil just for them. Now I know who's been uprooting some of my potted plants. This plant was ok, but I've found smaller plants before that looked like they had been squashed or dug up, like some animal had been rooting around in the pot. Mystery solved!