This is the first in a planned series of posts about my childhood nature experiences. I'm presenting a workshop at the upcoming AEOE conference (Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education) that touches on this subject, with a focus on reptiles and amphibians.

Toads were one of my first loves. I can remember scouring the neighborhood for them when I was a child. I don't remember the very first time I found one, but I have a very clear memory of the feeling I got when I discovered a likely hole under a rock or inside a drainage pipe. There was that undefineable toad smell too - kind of a moist, swampy odor, that served as an olfactory clue for me to follow. I would reach my hand into the hole, sometimes feeling my fingertips brushing against the rough skin of the hiding amphibian. They would puff themselves up, of course, making it impossible to pull them out of their hiding places without hurting them. I quickly discovered how to get around that. I would flush them out with water. I got pretty good at this, and soon I was able to find toads everywhere. I would bring them home and keep them for awhile, and it pains me to admit that sometimes they expired in my care. I still had a lot to learn back then. For instance, you can not successfully keep toads inside a toy Winnebago, and you shouldn't ever leave a glass terrarium or plastic bucket full of toads out in the sun. These failures did little to dampen my enthusiasm, although I'm left with some lingering adult guilt over the deaths I inadvertently caused.

Still, there was nothing quite like the feeling of seeing an enormous toad crawling grumpily out of a hole that I'd just spent a half an hour flushing with water. That was a grand accomplishment for me.

Looking back, I find it amazing that there were so many toads living in suburbia. I'm willing to bet that there are nowhere near as many now, and not because of kids like me either. There are fewer fields, and even the parks have become more sterile. A lot of the decorative boulders, so beloved of toads, have been removed. Suburbia is much harder for wildlife to survive in than it was.

Now, I bring my camera along and take pictures. That way nothing gets harmed. Of course, the last time I took my camera out, it was to the beach and now there's sand in the lens mechanism and the camera will no longer focus correctly. Dammit.