54 Toads and a Bat

Sounds like a recipe for a Halloween stew, right? Actually, it's a biref insight into the wildlife around our house.
So John and I have this tradition. . . it started right after we got married and were living in the apartments on Broadway and continued through the miles of marathon training and now walking the dogs: counting toads.
Ever since we checked the mail at the apartment once after sunset we couldn't resist counting how many "frogs" we would see on the sidewalk. Our previous record was 18 toads during a really long run one morning. But Sunday night we blew that number out of the water: we spotted 54 frogs in less than a two mile walk with Tex and Blanco! Of course, it helps to have four sets of eyes and two really good noses to help spot them all. You could say it was a family effort. After we would spot 20 or 30 we kept extending the walk to see how many we could find. At 50 we felt our task was done, we then we spotted a big group of them nestled together on top of a sewer cover. They certainly pick lovely places to congregate!
And so the animal watching continued this morning as I was taking out the trash and was transfixed by the little local bat with it's crazy erratic swooping. Of course I pointed this out to our other neighbor who was taking out her garbage and I think I scared her silly with all the talk of rabid bats going around.
Well, those are our adventures at this date. Keep coming back for more. John has promised to start blogging again, and I almost got him to type out a little bit on Sunday, but. ..
I'll keep trying!