As long as it's not a Cane Toad.

I like when the babies come out after the rains in early summer. Although it sometimes makes evening walks rather treacherous.

toads were thought to carry a jewel in their heads that changed colour to warn of poison and protect against evil

Wahhh?! 😦

Toadstone

The toadstone, also known as bufonite (from Latin bufo, "toad") and crapaud-stone, is a mythical stone or gem that was thought to be found in the head of a toad. It was supposed to be an antidote to poison and in this it is like batrachite, supposedly formed in the heads of frogs. Toadstones were actually the button-like fossilised teeth of Scheenstia (previously Lepidotes), an extinct genus of ray-finned fish from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. They appeared to be "stones that are perfect in form" and were set by European jewellers into magical rings and amulets from Medieval times until the 18th century.

Fossilized Scheenstia jawbone with "toadstones"

From ancient times people associated the fossils with jewels that were set inside the heads of toads. The toad has poison glands in its skin, so it was naturally assumed that they carried their own antidote and that this took the form of a magical stone. They were first recorded by Pliny the Elder in the first century.

Like the fossilised shark teeth known as tonguestones, toadstones were thought to be antidotes for poison and were also used to treat epilepsy.[1] As early as the 14th century, people began to adorn jewelry with toadstones for their magical abilities. In their folklore, a toadstone was required to be removed from an old toad while the creature was still alive. 17th century naturalist Edward Topsell wrote that this could be done by setting the toad on a piece of red cloth.

The true toadstone was taken by contemporary jewellers to be no bigger than the nail of a hand and they varied in colour from a whitish brown through green to black, depending on where they were buried. They were supposedly most effective against poison when worn against the skin, on which occasion they were thought to heat up, sweat and change colour. If a person were bitten by a venomous creature a toadstone would be touched against the affected part to effect a cure. Alternatively Johannes de Cuba, in his book Gart der Gesundheit of 1485, claimed that toadstone would help with kidney disease and earthly happiness.

Polished Jurassic toadstones

Last night a...toad, or maybe a frog, hopped onto my bed.

I was laying down facing the edge of the bed and wall, without my glasses on, reading the phone.

The bed them shakes a bit and I hear a tiny thump.

But the cat can't be in here, the door is closed. I look around. There is now a lump near the very top edge of the bed.

A large bug???

No, a fucking frog like thing! A shock! They don't come inside.

With a solo cup and a piece of paper he was put outside near my tomato plants.

Best cane toad song ever:

https://youtu.be/vgA_UCh44Vg