Toad Traps
Five valuable lessons from a pair of holes in the ground...
When I was seven years old my parents bought 12 acres of land in the woods, and built a log home. I remember much of the process; the basement going in and the foundation being poured, the wooden skeleton rising up out of it, the triangles that were the roof gables perching on top, the drywall finally making the walls look like walls, the shingles and trim that made it feel “done” and the grumpy old man who had to paint all of it before it actually was.
Our new house had four full-sized windows put into the basement, in two pairs, one set each on the front and back of the house. This meant that in two areas, front and back, our yard just ended, and dropped right into a big ol’ pit - maybe ten feet long and four feet wide and three feet deep - for the windows. These holes intrigued and fascinated me.
For one, I didn’t understand their purpose; they didn’t exactly offer a great view. From the basement you could see gravel, wood and sky. Seven year olds aren’t thinking about escaping fires or allowing natural sunlight in, so I just figured they were pointless windows to nothing. From inside the house, the pits seemed pretty useless. But outside was a different story.
They were great hiding places for hide-and-seek and perfect bunkers for battle games, but best of all, these holes had a habit of capturing all manner of woodland creatures in them on a daily basis. For a kid this provided endless entertainment. I learned a lot of lessons from these two holes in the ground.
Lesson #1: Don’t believe everything you see on television. All of the cartoons lie. You don’t have to carefully cover your traps. Forget disguising the hole with flimsy branches and leaves for camouflage, as one would to trap a heffalump. Apparently most animals will just walk right in… which they did, often. And once they did, anything that couldn’t fly or leap the 3’ vertical wall was stuck there until a curious child came to the rescue and scooped it out. Over the years we rescued moles, muskrats, rabbits, opossums, turtles, mice, snakes, and raccoons, but the most common occupant - by far - were toads. Therefore the pits were called “Toad Traps” by everyone in my family.
Though toads were the most common prisoner, my brother and I received a thorough education on rescue tactics for just about anything that could drop in there. Which brings me to~
Lessons #2: Know your adversary.
Each animal has unique defenses and requires an appropriate response and individualized tactics. For example:
Turtles can actually move pretty quickly (see lesson 1), will bite, and tend to pee on you.
Rabbits, though fast, go a bit numb with fright and can be cornered and scooped with a big enough bucket.
Snakes - at least small ones - aren’t actually very easy to pick up with sticks. (Again, lesson 1)
Muskrats, opossums and racoons are best just given a ramp.
Mice are tricky. They bite and jump and run; a triple threat. (They are really cute, though, so I never minded chasing them around until we could get them out. We would use a half of an old milk just for that. It was the one we also scooped birdseed with, so you always knew where to find it.)
Frogs were quite common, and a fun chase. It is not wise to wipe your face after handling them, though.
Toads are the easiest creature to catch. They also will pee on you.
Sometimes the dogs would notice the trapped prisoners before we did. One day a baby muskrat fell in the back trap, and our old basset hound, Marcus, happened upon him first. It was a pleasant spring day. The green shoots of grass were poking through the crispy old dry ones, and it was warm without being too hot. The redwing blackbirds were a noisy chorus by the swamp, and my brother and I were out in the woods doing who-knows-what. Marcus, alone, was in the yard with the captive critter. Thankfully, the old dog had enough brain in him to recognize the height difference between the trap walls and his own stumpy legs, so rather than go into the pit himself he started calling for help in long, bawling barks. Every three or four seconds. For about two hours.
Apparently my mom thought he just saw us kids in the basement through the windows, and she ignored him. When we came in from outside, hours later, she realized there must be something else going on, and went to investigate. So several hours after he first sounded the alarm Marcus was hailed a hero, and a bucket was taken in and a baby muskrat was brought out; rescued.
Marcus’ tail would wag in big, sloppy circles when he was happy. He was happy that someone had finally listened to him.
Another time we ran up to the trap as usual, with reckless abandon, only to spot a familiar and frightening ball of black and white striped hair. That sickening moment of realization at what we were looking at made our hearts stop. We retreated just as hastily as we’d approached. Dad took care of the skunk. He left a ramp board there overnight and let it make its own way out, and we learned~
Lesson #3: Approach with care.
Lesson #4: Choose your words carefully.
Terms that seem red-neck, probably are. I don’t know who in our house actually came up with the phrase “Toad Trap”, but it was so ingrained in our common daily vocabulary while I was growing up, even by my grandparents - “When was the last time anyone checked the Toad Traps?” - that I was genuinely surprised and humiliated to find out - as a teenager - that these things were actually called “window wells” by normal people.
In hind-sight I probably should’ve questioned this, and had the sense to realize that “toad trap” was not a term that I ever heard anyone outside of our family say - ever. I should’ve taken a minute to learn the correct term before using it in front of “normal people”. It would have saved an embarrassing moment. That said, “normal people” probably missed out on the fun we had in the toad traps.
In the spring we would get lucky sometime and find dozens of baby toads and wood frogs in the traps. The wood frogs were my favorite. They were like the bronze colored race cars of the frog family, and the babies were adorably clumsy. We’d be busy for hours clearing out the pits.
One of these days, when I was about nine years old, is cemented firmly in my memory for the lesson it taught me. I leapt down into the window well in the middle of baby frog season and found a half dozen or so stuck in there, along with an adorable mouse. I started with the frogs first, capturing them carefully under a cupped hand, closing them gently into it, fingers sealed tight but creature held lightly. I’d use the non-frog-hand to climb out of the hole and walk into the woods a ways before releasing the captive, to prevent a recurrence. Then back for another.
I’d evicted about five of the slimy little goobers and had just one left before I’d tackle the mouse. Up until this point he'd been cowering in a corner, occasionally dashing off to another one if the frog pursuit got too close to him. This final baby wood frog was the smallest one; barely bigger than a fingernail. I needed to be very fast to catch him, but also very gentle not to crush him. He was as speedy and sporadic as he was cute, so I was having some difficulty getting my hands on him.
At long last I managed to back him into the same corner as the mouse. Two of the cutest “Toad Trap” critters were stuck in that corner staring at me, and I was considering scooping them both up together, when the mouse stopped looking at me and took particular notice of the frog. He seemed to forget all about the dangerous human looming over him for a second and turned toward the baby frog, reached out, grabbed it and ATE IT!
For a child, it was a horrifying way to learn~
Lesson #5: Mother nature is brutal.
We don’t have window wells of that sort here at our home now. Nonetheless, my children have had no lack of nature experience, and lessons on treating wildlife with care and respect. We have a creek that runs through our backyard, and a small woodlot on and near our property that they are able to explore. And, along with a little help from us, the woods and creek are teaching them lessons of their own. Lessons like keeping their eyes open for less obvious things, not being afraid to get their hands dirty, the importance of being good stewards of God’s creation, and not ever causing - or allowing if it can be prevented - unnecessary pain in any creature.
They may not learn the same five lessons I did in the same way, but hopefully they will learn something useful. Because the lessons I learned have been just that.
One would hardly assume that de-creature-ing a window well and parenting would have much in common.
Interestingly, though, these 5 lessons learned in the toad traps -
Don’t believe everything you see on television,
know your adversary well,
approach with care,
choose your words carefully, and
remember that nature is brutal
are exactly the same lessons necessary for survival while raising teenage daughters.
So maybe the correct way to lift a crayfish and “Frogs scream even if you aren’t squeezing them” will be helpful to them someday… who knows!
