Petrified Toad... Awww or Ewww?

This morning my co-worker excitedly said she had something for me, then produced a baggie containing a small petrified toad (dehydrated, mummified, whatever.) She was cleaning her garage over the weekend, came across it, immediately knew I would want it, swept it into the baggie and brought it to me.

Of course I oohed and aahed over it, as I truly was happy to get it. Now keep in mind we are mature professionals in our 50s and we've never discussed dried up toads before. She does know I'm a box turtle lover and that I hike alot and take lots of pics of bugs and stuff. And she dutifully listens to my tales of skull finding and such. Mummified toads? It's never come up. But she knew.






What's funny is that when my cousin was here in early March I had found a small stiff frog, no legs and totally smashed. I studied it and placed it at the base of a tree by a rock to I could show it to my daughter (yes, I know it's gross, but she likes stuff like that, too.) When the 3 of us went out I looked for it and it was gone. So something found a stiff squashed tiny legless frog appealing. My co-worker was unaware of this, because even I know not to discuss everything.

Eddie and I headed west. I glanced down the deer skull path and saw the skull was missing. We went over to it because I was hoping the strong winds had maybe blown it off the stub of broken branch. It was nowhere to be found. I can't believe someone took it. While I looked around on the ground for it Ed stretched up on the trunk and reached his nose has far as possible. He remembered it was the skull tree (or else smelled it?) It was cute and disappointing.

It should be mentioned that at exactly 1 minute, 32 seconds into the hike I had a tick on me. Well, it was really on the back pack but that's the same as. I was still carrying the empty pack and just getting ready to put it on. I couldn't believe it. It seems we didn't see ticks until sometime in May last year, but I could be wrong.

Total hike about 55 minutes, but it's supposed to hail tonight and good chances of rain over the next 3 days, so I'm glad we went.