toad!

just to the right of the center grass in the top photo you can see a toad that has taken up residence in the garden ( mostly in the shade of the wheat grass and gamagrass ) an insect predator that is welcome...there's been at least one toad in the garden every season so far so it must be a fairly hospitable place...the next four photos alternate hopi blue maize 9 a new sprout in the second photo ) and teosinte ( the improbable zea diploperennis in the third ) an established hopi blue ( fourth ) and an up and an up and coming northern tepehuan in the last...still dry as could be here and now it's getting hot ( good for you coach ) which is exacerbating the dryness...the zea diploperennis leaves were curled when i got to campus this evening..a sure sign that they're losing a lot of moisture through transpiraton...i doused the garden throughly and i will begin making daily visits to water, at least, the shallowly rooted plants like the maize, jerusalem artichokes, and the annual grasses ( the perennials are rooted so much more deeply that they can skip a few days...particularly the asparagus )...i will need to visit farmer brown's field this weekend as well to see what's up in the industrial world...i don't see rain in the forecast anytime soon...at least not anything organized..."scattered thunderstorms" isn't going to cut it agriculturally...or even in the garden