Tree Toad

Have you ever seen a toad (bufo) hanging from a branch? I mean, how can that be? Everybody knows that bufos live on the ground slurping up insects and other small stuff with their sticky tongues.

So how'd this one get up in a tree? Here's how:

One day, the wife saw a stinky, shriveled dead toad splayed out amongst her orchid pots and recruited me to get rid of it. She wanted me to put it in a plastic shopping bag, bundle the bag up right and throw it in the green-waste recyling bin.

Heck no, I wasn't getting close to the smelly thing. I mean, it really reeked, and I sure didn't want it stinking up the bin.

I picked it up with a small rake and flung it far away toward the base of our pyrie mango tree. Unfortunately, a branch from our neighbor's tree was hanging over the fence and the toad got caught in it. Incredible stroke of luck. Ninety-nine point ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the toad would have hit the branch and fallen to the ground.

That just wasn't to be this time. The stinky dead bugger caught one leg on a twig and held on for dear life ... er, I mean, death. And lordy lord, I wasn't going to go up there and cut it down. So I left it there.

The wife had the last word. A couple of days later, the branch and stinky toad carcass were gone. She'd made the young man who comes to do our yardwork cut the branch down, wrap up the noxious toad in a plastic bag, and toss it in the green-waste bin.

Poor guy ... the yard guy, I mean, not the toad. He had to smell the damned thing. Ewww!