A few weeks ago we had a visit with Brian’s family.  Aunt Susie came over with her German daughter, Sarah, and we had a nice visit.  It was good to see Sarah.  It was fun having her here for a year, and she is such a sweet girl.  She has been back home in Germany where she finished up high school and is ready to take on the world of hotel management.

While they were here we had a nice lunch and visited awhile.  Eventually, it got late and we decided to order some pizza for dinner before they made the drive home.  Susie and Sarah wanted to take the kids to the pet store to get some fish while we waited for the pizza to arrive. (We live rather close to all sorts of shopping, so the pet store was only a few miles away.)

During the day we had been looking at the pond and noticed a frog inhabiting it.  The nice, normal, non-threatening frog is in the picture below.

Kailan saw a frog at the pet store that he just had to have, of course.  The kids each chose a fish for the pond, and then Susie let Kailan have that frog.  Once they got up to the counter, Aunt Susie was met with a surprise.  It was a poisonous toad!  She even had to sign a release to take it home.

Being the doting aunt, she still bought it for her little nephew.  It came with the added bonus of crickets that we were supposed to feed to it. 

Live crickets.

I have to admit the toad was pretty neat looking.  It was a light green with white speckles.  We let him out on one of the rocks in the pond while we were eating the pizza.  That is the last time we saw him.  He made a quick getaway as soon as felt the free air.  Very likely he was born and raised in captivity.  I’m sure he’s frolicking through the marshlands around our house now.

Fortunately, we still had the crickets.

We eventually had to let them go as they started to eat each other, completely ignoring that potato which was supposed to be their sustenance.  Little cannibals.

 We still are on the lookout for the toad.  As least there is no shortage of them in our yard for the kids to catch.  Nice, normal, non-poisonous toads. 😉