One of the three goldfish in my stock-tank container pond.
She’s at the surface slurping up mosquito larvae, no doubt. While I was taking a closer look at the fish, I noticed a brown, speckled leaf behind the horsetail and moved to flick it out of the pond. As I reached over, I was surprised to see that the leaf was actually a fat, brown toad hunkered down on the plastic pot in which the horsetail grows.

The stock tank’s smooth metal sides are two feet tall. How Mr. Jackson got himself up into it is a mystery. He must have jumped up and in, which illustrates just how badly he wanted to wet his feet in my rain-starved garden. Luckily for him, the pond contains several pots just under the water’s surface, perfect for bathing—if you’re a toad. There’s also a stone slab at the pond’s edge, which I intended to be a bird-bathing platform or insect rescue ramp. Now Mr. Jackson can use it to catch thirsty bugs.