Reports from the Catskills

Isabella: We saw a lot of slugs in the backyard. We saw a white slug. I like slugs. They are good explorers; they are like snails without shells. But Grandma hates them because they eat her plants.

Jonathan: I read Power Pack: Pack Attack!


Perhaps the slug Isabella saw looked like this.

On the Road

This week, Isabella and Jonathan are in the Catskills, and Joan must go to a meeting in San Francisco. We will try to report in, but there will be fewer posts until we return.

Toad of the Day

These beauties are Bufo periglenes or golden toads, from Costa Rica. The species is an "extreme example of a sexually dimorphic amphibian" -- meaning that the males and females are very different. The males are bright orange coloration, and the females are black with scarlet blotches edged in yellow. Sadly, I must report that these lovely creatures are extinct.

As noted in the Extinction Website:
"None have been seen since 1989. It last bred in normal numbers in 1987, and its breeding sites were well known. In 1987, due to erratic weather, the pools dried up before the larva had matured. Out of potential 30,000 toads, only 29 had survived. In 1988, only eight males and two females could be located. In 1989, a single male was found, this was the last record of the species. Extensive searches since this time have failed to produce any more records of the golden toad. (DeGroot 2000; Pounds & Savage 2004)"

Please send us your candidates for Toad of the Day -- photos or drawings.

Art Gallery and Toad of the Day

Jonathan Does Not Want to Live on the Moon

. . . at least not permanently:



From his kindergarten "graduation" last Friday.

Toad of the Day

This handsome fellow is a male Bufo americanus from the Catskills. Not knowing at first that males were smaller than females, we named this one Nina, but that didn't stop him from hopping onto a female one day and hanging on for 48 hours. (This mating behavior is called amplexus.)

Mr. Toad and Nina, are, of course, the stars of that Christmas Classic The Ribbiting Santas.

Art Review: Psychedelic

Joan: Last week Isabella read to Jonathan's class. She chose to read Yellow Submarine. The illustrations made the kids say oooooooh and wow and what???!! Afterward I told her that she made a good choice, that the kids had gotten into the psychedelic pictures. She said, "What's psychedelic?" My mission was clear. Yesterday, after their last day of school, we went to the Whitney to see Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era.

Isabella: I liked the part when there were flashing lights and everything we did looked like a picture. And I really liked the part when we went inside a huge furry box with places to sit.

Jonathan: I liked those parts too. And I also liked the huge patterns of dots and balls and circles that formed to music. I thought it was amazing!


Joan: Part of me had forgotten that this wasn't always a way to sell the latest cell phone or Volkswagen. That it was supposed to be unnerving, disturbing, then trippy, then liberating. Isabella started out saying "That eyeball with wings is freaking me out." Jonathan started out saying "I don't want to see this." Then it became "I can't . . .stop . . . looking." Then we sat in a dark room watching slowly changing lights and colors. Isabella said something looked like "glow-in-the-dark alien guts." Jonathan said it looked like "a live cupcake holding a sword." That's when we started to giggle, wicked subversive giggles. We were there.

Go to this. Bring children if you can.

Art Gallery: Dr. Octopus

Toad of the Day

Welcome. Our first Toad of the Day is the big, beautiful and beloved Mr. Toad, a female Bufo americanus from the Catskills in New York, named before we knew she was a girl.