Just Jackie

Toad Update!

I've been meaning to update ya'll (mostly Jenn) on my toad situation. She asked what size they were and I have many more pictures so I shall add them. But for an update on the toads...they've become a part of our yard. There is about four of them- all different sizes - that are here every night. Gotta love it. It was sooo exciting at first and it still is, but it's become kind of the norm so we just leave em alone and that's probably why they continue to come back. I tried (Jenn) to take pictures of them next to things so you could see the size, but it was more complicated than I wanted it to be because they hop away and get scared. So yeah...This first picture if of the tiny little guy. As you can see, he's about an inch tall and very small and this is him in a very  fattie pose. The second picture is of Craig's frog. We call the large on that was in my first post that Craig discovered first, Craig's frog, and this other one is mine. I shall show you mine later. You can't tell but Craig's frog is really big. Like the size of a racquetball perhaps. But this picture doesn't show that. It's him on our back rug. So yeah. This third picture is the worst picture, but it's a picture of MY frog on the window seal like he is every night. He must hop up there and then he just stares into the house from that ledge everynight. It's the front door window so it's only like two or three inches off the ground. But he's always there! Such a handsome little guy. You can't tell his size at all either but he's about the size of a large bouncy ball. ? I don't know. It's hard to describe and I doubt anyone cares about this much detail. ha ha!

I am also posting a picture of the NASTY pregnant spider that I encountered that one night. Craig and I also came across another pregnant spider a few nights later. Sketchy. I hate when those babies run every which way. So we smashed it so they couldn't. Yay. I don't need fifty million spiders running all over. I recently watched Charlotte's Web and it was the freakin cutest movie of all times, and when I was watching, I thought to myself, I'll never kill spiders again. But I have and I will continue because they are POISONOUS ones here. I used to pick spiders up with my hands and just take them outside. I was so nice to them and I never killed anything. Man, I ain't messing with it anymore. They are dead if they are in my path. :) Sorry! Look at that friggin scary pregnant little beast! Wow I just felt a horrible guilt come over me that that poor spider went through all she did to create some more little babies and I feel friggin horrible for killing her and her babies. Oh my I'm so evil. Especially if she's not a brown recluse like I thought, and she's not. So sad! Wow, I was so happy when I started to post this about killing her and it didn't end how I had hoped. :(

Oh Dad, here's the plants that you wanted to see...

                                                                                                      

The Flowers to the Left are flourishing. Those white ones that are starting to come out were even like completely dead when I returned from Utah. Yay! So exciting. The same exact flowers are in the other pot and they are NOT flourishing. I think they may have more (too much) sun in that spot. Or something. But then the hanging basket on that same side is doing a little better than the other??? Go figure. Perhaps I'm not watering them evenly though I think I am. But then I'm starting to think that something got to this one because looky here...  One day I went out there and the pink (hot) flowers had like four dead stems. They were like brown and crumbled like they'd been burned or something. Weird. What could that be? The geraniums had like ten heads full of flowers and now it's down to one. Strange I think. Any suggestions pops? Oh and here's a close up of those hot pink flowers. They are called Vinca and I think you should invest in some because I love them! A LOT. They are so pretty and green and fun. Find some ok? Oh and there's a picture of my awesome, amazing, cute, handsome little man Linky Linkster! Nothing special but cute nonetheless...oh and check out my awesome new primary bag that he's standing by. LOVE IT! :) I'm so crazy! He's got a "duh!" look on his face kind of. he he! Little low hanging chubby cheeks cutie pie!

Hair Scare!! :)

I've been meaning to post a picture of my AWESOME birdhouse for so long now. My sweet, awesome, amazingly wonderful, gracious, cool father built it for me. (can you tell the Daddy's girl misses her Pops!?) I painted it and decorated it, but he and I designed it together and built it while I was in Utah. I surely love it. It sits way high on a post in my backyard so I can see it from the road when I drive in the neighborhood all the time. It's fun. I haven't checked for birdies yet because it's so high, but I'll let you know. I roughed it up to make it look warn out so if you see that ghetto part of it, that's meant to be ghetto. :) I just love it. We designed it so the roof has hinges on it and I can just open it right up. It's fabulosa! So I had a big goal in getting this thing up ASAP because there were already two bird nests in my tree and carport so I figured the birdies could use a nice town home. So here's the story behind that. This was when I was back from Utah and Craig was still at IFS in Colorado, so I was alone here and I would put Linkin to bed at  night and then wait until like midnight and go outside and dig dig dig the hole that the post needed to go in. I bought a thing for the post to rest in that is a cinderblock type thing but once I dropped it into the 2 foot hole, it didn't work out so there I am in the dark with my flashlight pulling this heavy thing out of this deep hole. My back wasn't too happy for a long long time. Anyhow, so the project carried on for days and days, because I couldn't get it just right ever. I was out in the corner of my yard late late at night in the dark with a flashlight DIGGING. How does that look? I was sure that someone was going to start getting the idea that I was burying something. My husband perhaps? Wow, I watch CSI and 48 hours mystery WAY too much because I was literally worried someone was going to think I was trying to hide something. Anyways, at least if I was investigated, all they would find is a big hole and a couple cinderblocks. So I ended up taking that stupid thing back and getting three cinderblocks and making it work with that. But it was a big mess and a strain on my body in the end. Perhaps that's why I still haven't replaced the shingles that fell off the house, because it was just too much work getting that house up in the air to wanna bring it back down anytime soon. Anywayz...I love it. It was worth the work!

Well well! Here's a pic of what my hair looked like after Craig and I spent the night trying to dye it ourselves. See the problem is is that my hair was back to my original color, so much that my roots that had grown in were the same color as the current dye. So when we tried to dye it, it ended up orange at the roots and an ugly dirty blonde everywhere else. What a mess!! Finding a hairstylist around here is impossible. Well you can find them but getting in to them is a joke, but I called around the next morning and found a woman who was willing to do a 5 pm appointment and try to color correct my hair. Unfortunately, I didn't ask beforehand what the cost was going to be, and she wouldn't be able to tell me anyway because it just all depends. So anyways...I went to Ruidoso to get it done at a salon called Hello  Gorgeous. I know that most people get their hair done every month so this story is so stupid for most, but if you know me, you know I'm not very brave and I keep the same hairstyle for WAY too long. So  anyhow, I was there for four hours and used up about 7 tubes of hair dye with all my crazy thick hair. Lo an behold the end result was this............. and a $200 check!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't believe it, I wanted to lay down and cry right there. Who spends $200 on getting their hair done. All I could think of was that was halfway to the new lens I want for my camera! UGH!! It's not even a $200 looking hairdo. It's just OK. I mean it's a BIG step up from the orange and ugly gray blonde, so that's what Craig wants me to focus on, not the money. But it is $200 we DON'T have. ha haha! So that's the hair story for the day.

AND...my last thing on the blog agenda today is to send the ol' grandpappies, and Grandmommies a little grandson laughter. Enjoy! Oh man, sorry it's sideways! That's no fun!

Craig Left again!!

PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS IF YOU READ MY BLOG! I love to hear what people think!!! Plus, I don't know who reads it and I like to know. Thanks! You are all nice!! For those who haven't visited this site in a long time, there is many pictures posted in the previous posts below, and also lots of fun new pictures in the JULY album... Love you all!! :)

Are you serious!?!? Craig decided late last night that he was going to go up to Boy Scout camp for the week. He's silly. He takes any opportunity he can to leave me home alone. ha ha! Shows how much fun I am! So he's going to be gone for about three days, and then probably we'll try to go do something fun as a family when he gets back. So I guess today I just have some random news to share.

The truth is that Craig and I have oodles of fun together. He's just trying to "magnify" his calling as Asst scout master and for that I am proud of him. I too am trying to magnify my calling as a primary teacher. I love my kids. They are five year olds. They are so dang darling and cute. On Sunday, one of them...Cammie...said the closing prayer and she prayed that Sister Dearden would be able to have fun with her baby. She's so funny. One Sunday she prayed and thanked Heavenly Father for her Dad being strong enough to carry her sister! :) So cute! She's so funny. Makes me laugh. The rest of them are so dang fun too. I've been able to get them to follow class rooms and be reverent and it's been a lot of good so far and I hope it continues. I'm actually going to start some projects this week to start a family home evening binder. If anyone knows anything that would be a good family home evening lesson, please let me know. I'm going to try to save a bunch of materials for my children's future learning. I'm excited.

Yesterday in church, a lady gave a talk about how she shut her cable off and their family happiness hasn't been better than it is now. She talked about how much time we spend watching TV and spending alone time on the computer, as opposed to having family time and spending quality time together! Well Craig and I evaluated our situation and are happy to report that we think we have a very well balanced life. I think shutting off our cable bill would disturb us for sure. It would interrupt the pattern in which we co-exist in the world (???). Also, if I didn't have my time on the computer, I'd probably stop functioning. Over the weekend here there was a MASSIVE thunderstorm...we went with a friend Brittani to white sands. We had so much fun there. We dug big holes and put Linkin in them and chased each other around. It had rained so the sand was soggy and sticky and moist and it was a lot of fun. The sky was completely black and there was lightning striking ALL around us. It was amazing. I saw some lightning that literally knotted my stomach. It was soooooo awesome. The lightning here is literally worth driving 13 hours just to see!!!!!!!! We get it like every night and it's soooo neato!!! Sometimes, you just know that "that one struck something". Hence our TREE in our front yard that was struck while we were gone! It's a HUGE tree too. We have a picture but I'm not finding it. So anyways...I kind of went off on a tangent, but the point is that once we got home from white sands, brittani left and went home and Craig and I walked in the house, and then booom, the power went out. It was pitch black (obviously) because we were all three in the bathroom. Link and I were in the tub getting the sand off us, and Craig was sitting in there chatting with us. So I guess that's the point of my story is that we found ourselves ALL NIGHT with no TV, no internet, and really nothing that we regularly use. So what did we do, well we played Scrabble with a flashlight!!! Craig and I play games together a lot, so it was really no big deal to pull it out and play right then. Craig loves it when the powers out. He thinks it's like some super fun moment or something. When Craig was younger, (when the power was out) his Mom used to light candles and they would play games and sing songs, and anytime our power goes out, he is reminded of those times, so we do it in our home too! I'm not a big fan of the power outages, because my mind is thinking about all the food in my fridge and freezer is going to go bad if it doesn't come back on ASAP! So anyhow, it was off for some hours, we ran around trying to find more flashlights right before bed for when Linkin woke in the night. All our flashlights kept dying, but we'd find another one and then it would die, etc. It was pretty funny, and we just kept laughing. So we took a dying flashlight and found some batteries and got our smallest flashlight all batteried up and FINALLY after like an hour of "preparing" for bed with flashlights and stuff, we crawled into bed and BOOOM all the lights go on!!!! So silly. We just laughed and went to sleep! I guess our little talk about family time revealed that most everything we do is together. When I am on the internet, Craig is usually in the same room watching TV or sitting on the stool next to me watching or helping me. We balance our time between watching extremely hilarious and awesome TV shows, or watching a movie, or planet earth, or playing games, or going swimming, or hanging out in the yard. Craig even comes with when I water my flowers. So I think we get plenty of family time and we also get our share of time away, and time to ourselves. As for Linkin, he's still the happiest baby I know so hopefully that means were doing something right. Guess we'll see...   

Craig cut my hair. Yeah like two inches off the bottom. It was nice. I hate how it starts to get so straggly. I got some birthday money from my wonderful Parents In law and Grandmother Dear so I was going to get my hair done. But seeing as I live in Alamoghetto, there's really not a large option of hairstylists, and I just don't trust. So I will probably just continue to let it look hideous and wear it in a tight ponytail with hundred of bobby pins holding it out of my face every single day for ten more years! : ) I'm crazy!

Just want to report that Linkin slept well last night. He only woke up once and he didn't even really cry, just kind of whined and made some noises and it's because Craig and I woke him up by making noise going to the bathroom at the same time and stuff. So he slept for like 6 hours and then woke up and drank a bottle and then slept 7 more hours! YAY!! It was a GREAT night!

Now for the fun part. Craig is going to KILLLLL me! I found this video we made when we first got our digital cameras almost three years ago. It cracks me up. We are total dorks. It's just that there's this one part where Craig gets frisky, but other than that, it's fine and that part is like 5 seconds long and a joke and not really R rated, but more like PG-13, so you'll get over it. :)

Notice how I continue to dance while Craig's goes on to do laundry. ha ha! Weirdos!!!

Mississippi!

Craig got his orders for Mississippi recently and we found out that we are to report there no later than Nov 13. Sooo...that means that we will be moving from here about a week prior to that date. Yay! We are excited to move. We will miss it here at Holloman. Especially White Sands, but we look forward to seeing new things and meeting more new people. So it's still four months away and in the meantime, I'll share our plans with you... We are planning on going to Utah sometime hopefully in September perhaps. We are going to have a fun birthday party to celebrate Linkin's FIRST BIRTHDAY! Wow, that's super crazy! Anyways...I hope you all can come because we want everyone to be there since it's a short visit for us. Then at the first of October, we are meeting my parents and Jamie and her family at Lake Powell. YYYYYYYYYYAHOO! I've never been and I'm so psyched to go. I know it's going to be beautiful and super duper fun! Then at the end of October, we are having a HUGE airshow here at Holloman and it's supposed to be one of the best ever because we are retiring the F-117 aircraft which is the awesome black stealth and at that time, we are also welcoming the F-22 raptor fighter that everyone loves!!! It's going to be so friggin exciting. I'm super di duper pumped. Craig's parents are coming to town for it and we are going to play play play all weekend. We decided we aren't going to start packing until they leave. We just want to relax and have our house in order while they are visiting. It's going to be so fun. Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait. AND my final news is that Craig found out though he has little to NO time off during UPT...he does have two weeks off during Christmas. So we are planning to fly home to Utah for the holidays and THAT is exciting for me too! I can't imagine Christmas without my family. It's a time of year that is very special and important to me and I know I'll have to get used to celebrating it without the whole family and spending it with my own special little family, I still look forward to being able to share it with them this year!!!!!!!! Wi hew! So those are my upcoming plans. HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND! Tomorrow is Friday. Whew!

Personality Test!

This is a fun personality test that Jenn sent me to take. I liked it a lot so I thought I'd share it with ya'll. Go ahead and go take it too! It's fun...  The site is http://dna.imagini.net/friends/

Read my VisualDNA™     Get your own VisualDNA™

Trouble Makers!!!!!!

So I got myself a bowl cup of cereal this morning. (I always eat cereal out of a cup. It started when I use to take cereal on the road to work every morning, and now I am much more comfortable eating it out of a cup). I set it on the coffee table while I did some stuff. When I looked back over, this is what I saw.... Those little brats!  They teamed up and spilled and ate my cereal. LINKIN is the starter of this mischief. Diesel just went along... he's such a follower. What a MESS!! The carpet small circle stains in all colors!!! Lucky Charms of course! Linkin was chowing them down though and lovin em'. Perhaps I'll be treating him to Lucky charms more often. My first reaction was madness, but then I thought to myself...it's kind of cute, take a picture. So I held in my cleaning freakness and took some pictures. Crazy kids!!

Look at those little trouble makers!!!                                       

My next subject is one that has me irritated to the max!! Craig is always whining up a storm about mosquitos. Always crying about how bad the bites itch and how bad he hates them. I always think to myself..."gol they aren't that big of a deal, man up!" But the thing is, I never get bit. I hardly ever get bit by mosquitos. Well last night I got fiercly attacked by them. SITTING IN MY LIVING ROOM!! I don't know where they were. I only saw one like twice. I don't see them around, but I know that I went to bed with like six excruciatingly ITCHY bites. I honestly couldn't sleep. I kept cortaid spray on my night stand but that didn't help. I'm such a wuss apparently. I mean I already have dry itchy unhealthy skin and then to get bit just magnifies the awfulness!! So I was uncomfortable all night long and still am to this minute. I got bit once again recently too! I found the hydocortisone cream finally so I've caked that on, but so far it's not helping. I'll always be sympathetic to Craig from now on! See his are much worse too. He's allergic to the bites or something because his bites swell up to about 10 times the size of mine. And he gets all rashy and red around that. Last night, he only got bit once luckily though. Where are those little suckers coming from. By the way...I've held back on about five hundred swarewords while writing about these stupid little malaria carrying creatures!!!!!!!!! I hate em!

My 10 MONTH old Baby wakes up 3 times a night for food STILL! In fact at one point, it was even better than it is now. I am so burned out, and exhausted. I don't know what else to do. I've tried EVERYTHING, it seems. I've tried rice cereal in his milk. I've tried feeding him more solids during the day. I've tried "crying it out". Which he is not going for. If it was crying out for fifteen minutes, then I'd do it over and over, but this will go on for hours because he is literally STARVING. Why why why? I don't know why he's so hungry in the night, but I know that he has my jeans because if I wake up in the night, a lot of times, I can't go back to sleep without eating cereal or something. So wierd. My stomach literally aches for food and pretty much BEGS for it. It's annoying! Because usually I'm sooo tired that I don't feel like eating, but I can't lay there and fall asleep because my stomach is so empty. Anyways...I would love suggestions about Linkin not sleeping, but I feel like I've honestly tried everything that people suggest. So tired!

OH MY HELLLLLLO! Another bite just surfaced. WHAT THE CRAP? There is honestly NO mosquitos around. What is going on???????  ITCH ITCH ITCH ITCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BIRTHDAY PRESENT!

OH MY HECK!!!!! I totally forgot to mention the best birthday present I got! PLANET EARTH: The complete Series! DUH! I'm sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited, you would never know. If anyone has not seen this series, I'm telling you again....WATCH IT! It's soooooo awesome!! Ok so that was an excited little comment I had to add to here! BYE

MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Holy schmoly I'm old! No but really it's so strange to turn 24!!!!! I feel like I'm feel like I'm stuck at 21, and  everything thereafter can't be happening. My birthday was a FUN day! Craig is the best husband in the world. Literally. He always goes above and beyond and does so good to make special occasions super special. I'm thankful I have the guy I do. Cuz I know some guys have a hard time even remembering the day, let alone making it special. So here's how our day went.

I woke up with a horrible migraine! NOOO! Not on my birthday. Craig made me stay in bed and not go to church...(even though I had a primary class waiting to hear my lesson). He was sweet and brought me cereal and some ibuprofen to help me feel better. Nice boy. I woke up around 1 pm feeling a tad better but I wasn't about to let my migraine take over my birthday activities! :) I'm such a kid. So when I woke up Craig was BAKING. Wow, how exciting. He made me the most awesome cake. TASTY too!! He's so funny how he always uses my favorite colors and stuff. I love it. It was hot pink and purple. Heck yeah dude! Oh wait, there's going to be a picture on here so I don't have to describe it. So anyways...it was tasty, moist, and good! He's a baker. I told him a few secrets! ;-) (that's supposed to be a wink). ha ha. Anyways...So then Craig was anxious to have me open  presents so that was our next activity. I was so excited to open the things I got because they were totally random and unexpected, yet much loved and much needed!! He got me two tennis racquets, and two things of tennis balls. Tennis is one of my very most favorite things to do of all times. So it was a happy moment. I left my tennis racquets and tennis balls back in Utah so now Craig and I can go and play...on the base tennis courts. YAY! So excited! Then I opened a new Crockpot...it's red and has a fancy design around it and is so nice  and big. My current crockpot is not working correctly. So I'm hoping this one will do the trick. I seem to use a crockpot a lot more often than I ever thought I would...so this was a happy present too. Then my last present was a deep fryer. SHHH! Don't tell anyone. I always said I'd never have one of these. It just seems gross to me to own a deep fryer because your chances of eating unhealthy will definitely  increase, but then I also just don't care anymore. We LOVE homemade french fries and this gift was solely to make that more possible. So there you have it. It's just little, nothing too exciting, but it has a nice lid and it's going to come in handy. I also got two boxes of cereal in the morning. Count Chocula, and chocolate cap'n crunch. Count Chocula is one of my alltime favorites, but the other I haven't tried yet. I have to be in the mood for chocolate cereal so I don't eat them that often. Anywho...then I asked for a certain dinner so Craig had it all ready and we grilled steaks on our new grill. The were sooo good. We also had homemade french fries with the new deep fryer, and corn and  watermelon. Yum! It was so tasty and good! Craig did swell! Well we then hung out in the yard and put up Linkin's new swing. Yay! He loves swinging as you know if you've seen the swing pics from my Utah visit (in a previous blog). We ate popscicles and chilled! Twas fun! Then we went to White Sands (of course), it's like one of my favorite places in the world. I do have to say though that the dunes in Utah are even more awesome!! Riding out far on four wheelers where the sand is super white and amazing looking just tops walking around here off! But I love it here too! So we played around there and OF COURSE took pictures. It's also one of my favorite places to take pictures in the world. Not that I've seen the world, but as far as places I've been and know of...yep it's the best! So I'll post those pictures as well and there's quite a few so check out the July folder for all the other pics of this months events! We have fun times, our little family. Yep we do! Thanks for visiting my blog!! :) Have a good one!  

Nature at my home!

Wow, I guess things like to hang out at my home. So the frogs are not the only things that are "hanging out" at my house. I discovered a bird nest in my tree out back and two little baby chicks peering over the side at me. One day I looked out the window and they were balancing on the edge of it flapping like they were going to take off. They never did, but they are still out there chirping all day. Then the bird nest that was in my carport...(I think I have pictures of that in my house pictures)...well it now has an "addition" so another bird has made it his home and it has more babies in there again. They are little black birds that have an irredescent blue color when they fly. I'm interested to know what they are. Pretty, but the Mom looks like a Raven, and she looks MAD when I'm around. Scary! I'm afraid she'll peck my head off! I try to keep my distance with everything living around here, because I want them to feel welcome and not run off. I'm so intrigued by stuff like this. I just think it's splendid. I'm a kid I guess! So last night I was talking to my Dad about the frogs because I had seen one again that night, so I went out there while I was on the phone and there he still was in the puddle...but then I started thinking, that doesn't look like the same one I saw earlier, so I looked down closer to my feet and there was another one!! I was describing to my Dad their sizes by saying the big one is about the size of a half dollar, chubbed up of course...and the little one is about the size of a quarter. Then I saw another one, and another one and ANOTHER ONE! And another one...this was about the size of a nickel! I said Dime but tonight as I went out there again, I saw the teeny tiny one again and he was more like the size of a nickel. SOOO cute!!! I received the package with my camera today so I was able to take pictures of the little guy. I just have to get them developed before I can post it. So...tonight I was working out on the porch...painting and stuff. So I had the front door open, the patio door and the back door all open cuz I was in and out and through and through...well at one point, I was straightening up some stuff in the living room and noticed that LInkin was being super quiet, so I went over to see what he was doing and he was trying to catch a COCKROACH!!! it was tiny, but it was still a cockroach. NASTY! I guess it came in from having all the doors opened. I've had the heeby jeebeez since! I mean they are all over here. I see them outside all the time, and last week I had a huge one in my kitchen but to know that Linkin would have picked it up and ate it was simply disturbing!!

So I'm into some serious projects right now. I will post pictures once I'm done, but it's basically a decoration craze. Using things I already have. Wonderful! So that's my task right now as well as keeping up with cleaning and picking up after Linkin's little "messes". Fun stuff! Have a good one!

Spadefoot Toads!!

Wow, it's late! I have been out in the yard RE planting new plants in my hanging baskets and planter boxes. My sweet neighbor Mary let me in on a secret. She watered my geraniums every other day while I was gone, so they are still somewhat living. Everything else is crispy and dead. Well except for a few other things. Anywho, as I was out watering the plants at the very end of the night, I had a little friend hop on by. His name is "couch's spadefoot toad". This is the second time I've seen one since I've been back. They are Desert toads primarily in Southern Arizona and Southern New Mexico. I read up on them on the internet being curious because I wanted to know what I could do to make him happy. Like food or what not. Well turns out they are desperate for water!!! Aren't we all who live down here!?! Well I read some fascinating stories about the toads. They  actually burrow down as far as two feet under ground during drought season and lie in wait for a storm. When they hear the thunder, they come up and splish and splash around in the puddles of water.  So I put a shallow cookie sheet pan of water out there for the little guy. He hopped right in, but he also hopped right back out as I scared him by moving a chair. So I went inside to leave the little man alone. Here is a couple stories that fascinated me that I'm going to copy on here as I am no good at telling this one.

"

My husband Richard and I sat in our backyard one summer evening, watching a violet-black thundercloud drift downhill, trailing dense curtains of rain. Brilliant stabs of lightning punctuated the early darkness. As the storm drew closer, a distant sound, like sheep bleating, began to insinuate itself through the banging thunder and the nearby car traffic - spadefoot toads! The downpour had brought the spadefoot toads up from the soil to feed and call for mates.

These tiny amphibians are a paradox:  out of water, they dehydrate quickly, and their gilled tadpoles are aquatic; yet they are most abundant in the Southwest's deserts. How do they manage?

Spadefoots spend much of their lives - years, in extreme droughts - dug deep under the soil surface, barely respiring, dormant. But after heavy summer rains, they emerge in noisy abundance. Roused by the sound waves of thunder, the toads tunnel upwards at night from solitary burrows as deep as two feet below the surface, hop to the nearest water - puddles, temporary ponds, roadside ditches - and squat, rehydrating their parched bodies through a porous skin patch on their bellies. Males float and bellow their desire; the curious trills and bleats of thousands of tiny swelling throats carry for miles. Females, drawn to the din, find a mate:  The two float while he clambers atop her and squirts sperm over the eggs she exudes.

At dawn, the adults dig themselves back underground with their "spades":   black, sharp-edged scrapers on the underside of each hind leg. They seem to swim backwards into the soil, wiggling from side to side as each powerful hind foot alternately pushes dirt outwards. When monsoon season passes, the toads retreat deeper underground to wait, dormant, until summoned again by reverberating thunder.

Left behind in ponds and puddles are the fruits of their hurried mating. If all goes well, the eggs hatch within a day, and the tiny, black tadpoles feed energetically on plants, small aquatic animals, and sometimes each other, racing to mature into air-breathing adults before their watery world dries up. Couch's spadefoot - the type that sound like bleating sheep - sprint from egg to adult in just over a week! (By comparison, bullfrog tadpoles take two leisurely years.) Surviving tads emerge from their puddle, gulping air and still dragging their tail, and follow their parents into the earth.

When the rain faded to a gentle patter, we took a flashlight and walked through our subdivision. Across the busy road, past wet fields of cotton, the sound swelled around us. At the edge of a normally dry flood catchment basin, we shone a flashlight into dark water. Below us hundreds of tiny toads floated, their throats swelling and shrinking, swelling and shrinking. We walked home again, wet, and overjoyed at the miracle of rain and toads in the New Mexico desert."

Wonderfully told. I just think that's great~! Well seeing as though my parents visit consisted of seemingly endless episodes of DVR'd "planet earth", you would know why this little toad fascinates me!! I love it.

P.S. I went out there and he's gone...however...I read that another lady has a bird bath in her yard and during monsoons, the bath is filled with tadpole babies. An experiment I shall too try! So exciting. Then I will feed the little dudes! Yay!

Oh and because I don't have a camera since I left it at my parents house ALONG with my wedding ring, I couldn't take a picture of the little guy, BUT while I was in Utah and Craig still hadn't left for training...he found the little guy in these pictures. So these were pictures he took then and sent me through email to show me. This one was a lot bigger than the guy I saw today!