“What is this?” my friends ask. “THAT,” I tell them, “is our friend, Toad. He lives in the back acre in a stone house atop a spiral herb garden of groundcover thymes, paved with valentines made by his good friends, Daniel and Amy. He usually sits on the roof and stands guard, surrounded by a frequently rearranged blockade of moonsnails. He has recently been seen jumping aboard a monster truck, but mainly because it was driving over his house.”