June 23, 2020. On our last hike (Father’s Day), we stumbled across hundreds of baby toads. By babies, I mean teeny, tiny, adorable little toads. They were so small that at first glance we thought they were little crickets. We loved watching and holding the baby toads so much on Father’s Day, we decided to return to Indian Lake to visit them again.
Unfortunately, by our next hike, we started to notice lots of smooshed baby toads on the path. It made sense, given the baby toads were bug sized and the paths heavily trafficked. We understand the circle of life. Some baby toads just don’t make it. Many little ones are delicious food for other animals. We are not naive to the way an ecosystem works. Yet, even with awareness that toad mamas have tens of thousands of babies in a lifetime and several become food for other things, we somehow felt a sense of sadness and loss for each smooshed one.
After discovering the smooshed toads, I watched as the kids desperately tried to clear numerous baby frogs off the path before another group of hikers came to smoosh them. I listened as Elijah and Penelope warned every group of hikers they saw, “Watch out! There are lots of baby toads crossing ahead! Please try not to smoosh them!” In that moment, I realized, we were living the parable of the starfish. For those unfamiliar, here is a brief rendition…
“A man goes out on the beach and sees that it is covered with starfish that have washed up on the tide. A child is walking along, picking them up and throwing them back into the water. ‘What are you doing, child?’ the man asks. ‘You see how many starfish there are? You’ll never make a difference.” The child paused thoughtfully, and picked up another starfish and threw it into the ocean. ‘It sure made a difference to that one,’ the child said.
In Elijah and Penelope, I see the same highly sensitive and deeply empathic child that still lives in me. The child whose heart broke (and still breaks) for injustice anywhere. My kids fill me with hope in the moments when my heart becomes overwhelmed by the amount of injustice, pain, and suffering in this world. They remind me that I am not the only one “throwing the starfish back into the ocean,” nor am I intended to be. Their gentleness, wonder, and compassion for those baby toads mattered on that day—a little for the toads; a great deal for the child still living in me!
KNEP Hikes 
On Thursday Auntie Mimi, Kak, Tim and I had to putt on a green where it was covered with baby Toads! They were hopping everywhere and we were working hard not to step on them. I think we hit one that hopped into the path of a ball that was already moving – but otherwise they were all still hopping when we left the green! 😊⛳️💜💕💜
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