The Urban Pantheist

Needham is a small mostly residential town next to the one I live in, in eastern Massachusetts. I don't go there much, except to Cutler Park, a big boardwalked swamp that's fun to visit. To be fair, I haven't been to a big boardwalked swamp that WASN'T insanely fun in my opinion, and I've been to a few. I noticed that in addition to Cutler, there was another parcel of public land in the town, designated Needham Town Forest. When my dad drove up for the day, we went there. It was a very unusual Town Forest in many ways.

( Read more... )

This little American toad was scooped up from the vegetable garden, right where we want him! (Or her.)

We were told by the man we bought the house from, that there are toads in the yard (and sometimes in the basement). We eagerly anticipated finding toads, and were delighted when one tiny one showed up in the veggie garden. As of this writing, Alexis has found three different toads in three different parts of the property.

American toads are found across eastern North America in a variety of habitats. Their main habitat requirements are shallow bodies of water in which to breed, and a source of insects and other invertebrates to eat. In our part of the world they also need some deep leaf litter or similar substrate to burrow in to survive the winter. Toads are unable to quickly escape predators, so rely on their camouflage and large poison glands to protect them. The milky white bufotoxin they exude under stress is bad-tasting (judging by the retching it inspired in my family's cairn terrier back when the family lived in Stafford and the dog frequently caught toads) but much less toxic than that of many other amphibians.

My boss recently informed me that the American toad was probably going to be moved out of genus Bufo. This made me much sadder than Pluto losing its planetary status. Bufo is the genus whose members are called "true toads," and includes the common European toad Bufo bufo. I feel sad that the American toad and the common toad may soon be separated with different genus names.

Dad and I dropped off Andy at Heathrow, took the train to Poole, then spent the night there. In the morning we saw a little bit of the seaport, then took the ferry to Jersey.
( Read more... )

I warned people before about animal-based aphrodesiacs. With drugs like viagra and cialis available, I can't imagine why someone would resort to taking bufotenine to help their love life. I guess it wasn't selling well enough as a hallucinogen, so the weirdos who are killing toads and concentrating the fluids of their parotid glands into blocks must be remarketing their product.

If you shouldn't lick a toad, you definitely shouldn't lick concentrated toad venom.*

Public service announcement over, until the next time someone dies for a really stupid animal-related reason.






*Discussions about whether the poisonous secretions of genus Bufo should be considered a venom are welcome. Nerd.

After the brakes were fixed, we continued with our original plan. The Mt. Misery Conservation Area in Lincoln, Mass.

Mt. Misery is described as "a modest hill covered with a dense pine forest," and is a favorite for dog owners in the Metro West area.


( 10 more pictures )
Of course, cross-posted to cottonmanifesto.