A year or two ago, my Dad's septic tank needed work. He'd just bought the house, so they weren't sure where to dig. That is, they can look at the outlet pipe and know the direction, but to find the right location they probe with rods.

Except the primary crop around here is stones, so probing got them nowhere. The backhoe went to work, and after digging a trench a dozen feet long, they finally found the tank, and fixed what ailed it. Then the backhoe piled all the dirt back into the overly-large hole.

So today, in that whole section, there's little grass, as all the stones on the surface give grass no purchase. I got out a wheelbarrow and a shovel, and dug out a section to a few inches deep. The rocky soil got dumped in a low spot in a wooded section that doesn't have any grass anyway. Then I dug out a wheelbarrow-load of fine compost from the bottom of the compost heap, which was a garden before it was a heap. So we're talking primo soil.

I dumped half of the load directly, then was delivering the rest of the load one shovel-full at a time from the wheelbarrow. I tossed a scoop, turned back to the wheelbarrow to get another scoop, and saw something green. There was a big honking toad in the bottom of the wheelbarrow. He was ackwardly scrabbling up the side, trying to escape.

He was ackward because his back right leg was badly broken at the femur. It wasn't an open fracture, but it was still very much not good. So I carefully scooped him out, placed him back in the hole in the compost heap I'd been getting dirt from, and shoved a huge pile of leaves on top.

Last night was the first hard frost of the year. I figure the little guy was hibernating underground, when I shovelled him out, breaking his leg either then, or when I took a shovelfull out by the hole.

I dumped the rest of the compost I'd collected onto the low spot, then put away my tools. I feel terrible, and not inclined to dig up any more toads this fall.

I also am aware that me feeling terrible is kind of ironic, too. I mean, I did hurt that toad pretty badly. It's probably going to die. But I ate the flesh of a cow (or a steer) last night, and I expect to eat some other type of animal flesh tonight. Plus, I've killed human beings and felt no such remorse. But the suffering of this toad makes me feel guilty. The human mind is a strange thing.

Posted by: Boviate at 01:46 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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