Recent Additions

We were married for almost two weeks before our family started growing.

One evening about a week and a half ago, my darling husband burst through the front door when he got home from work. He was so excited he was almost jumping up and down. “Honey! Get me some cups or something. There’s a huge horny toad outside – I’m gonna catch it!” A second later he was gone again, taking two plastic cups with him and leaving me scratching my head. Before long he returned with a six-inch lizard caught in the cups. We transferred the feisty little guy to a glass bowl, covered with plastic wrap, and proudly carried him with us to Bible study where we showed him off to our friends.

I thought perhaps we would keep the lizard for a day or two, then release him back into the wild. But after four days we’d grown rather fond of the little reptile. He was still in the bowl, having had nothing to eat or drink, so I went to a pet store, bought him a more appropriate home, and we made a family decision to give him to Madi as a pet. After some preliminary research on Google and Wikipedia, I discovered that the lizard was not, in fact, the famous Texas Horned Lizard (aka “Horny Toad”), but a Texas Spiny Lizard. I know, I know…I was homeschooled. I might also have gone to the library and checked out some books about lizards and frogs.

Madi was ecstatic. She dubbed our new addition “Rodie,” and happily helped set up a terrarium for him in her room, complete with basking lights and wood chips. That night we went on a family excursion down to the trail near our apartments, to find rocks and branches for Rodie to climb on. While exploring, the three of us ended up down by a creek bank, catching frogs and crickets and having a lovely muddy time. The next day Madi and I went back to the creek after school and caught a caterpillar and some tadpoles. We soon had a menagerie in Madi’s room, containing one Texas Spiny Lizard, one American Toad, two frogs, seven tadpoles, and a caterpillar.

I’m not sure if we still have the frogs…I haven’t seen them in a couple of days. The caterpillar turned black and died, so we got two more to replace him. One of them has since made his cocoon, so hopefully we’ll have a butterfly soon. Six of the tadpoles have disappeared. I’ve named the remaining tadpole “Cannibal.” The toad and lizard are hanging in there, munching away on June bugs, moths, and crickets that we feed them.

Now I have to figure out a way to clean the cage without everyone escaping. Any suggestions?