u/Achylife

Big girl Smudge demands I refill the worm bowl. How dare I eat while she *STARVES*. (They were fed yesterday.)

They absolutely love the overgrown zucchini. The chickens can hardly keep up with these gluttonous waterfowl. Good thing we have a lot of zucchini.

I was changing the sheets and spotted this little rascal snuggled up in my pillows! I swear this is the same little guy that I saved from the cat earlier this year, and gave a mealworm snack before I released him. A bit bigger and regrowing the tail.

5 different blueberry varieties, and thornless blackberries.

Was out gathering snails in the yard and saw a bunch of their siblings and cousins hopping all over the place. So adorable.

We have a serious overpopulation of invasive brown garden snails. We also have an issue with parasites. My solution, a 3 minute boil to make easy to store ducky escargot. They got the first test batch today and gobbled them all up.

I figure why waste all that good nutrition by just killing the snails when they can give the flock extra nutrition and organically control the snails in one go. This picture is barely a dent in the snails on our 5 acres. Two gallon bags full. There were literally piles of snails in some spots. Still going to routinely deworm my guys, but this should help with the parasite load.

I rescued Littlefoot and many of their siblings off my dad's gravel road last night. I was afraid the tiny babies would be squashed by cars, and I was unfortunately right. I found several that I was too late to save. I'm not even kidding it took me almost an hour to make it down the lane because I couldn't stand the thought of running any over. The rest of their siblings went off via a bucket to nice watered landscaping around acres of land. Godspeed, little nuggets.

Littlefoot however I noticed had a malformed back foot, making it unlikely to survive long in the wild. So I decided Littlefoot just had to come home with me. When they're big enough they will join my four other spoiled California toads. They'll never have to worry about predators, parasites, getting squished, or going hungry. They're a very healthy baby otherwise and full of energy.

California toad, probably female. According to my mom there is an even bigger one hopping about our garden. It's really good to see toads this big in my locale again. It's been years, a decade maybe, since we've had so many full gown toads surviving to this size.

For many years we only saw juveniles, at most half this size. For various reasons they were not surviving long enough to get full size. I think recent changes in landscaping have helped shelter them better from predators, both wild and domestic. Deep mulch, irrigation, and lots of low plants and shrubs. We have seen an increase in western spadefoots as well.

My girls are always out and begging the first inkling they get that I have food. How could I say no to these little faces!? My two boys are so much more shy and reserved. I'm pretty sure Smudge, the closest toad pictured, would chase me down for crickets. She begs for bugs like a puppy.

Juvenile Pacific tree frog. Perched on the tippy top of my raspberry bush. ❤️ Cute as a button.

These cute little gluttons.