Sara's Hat Trick

"What a good Mommy I am to my boys," Sara said, as she reflected on the day's events. The day began with Sara heading out the door for a run. She stopped a foot past the door and called to us. There was a lizard on the front steps. Zola was asleep upstairs, but Milo, Calder, and I ran out to see. With a little teamwork we scared it into a bush, at which point Sara grabbed it. Out came a red tupperware, and into it went the lizard:

Sara continued on her run. But we soon got a call. "I've found a snake," she said. With the lizard secured, the boys and I raced to the corner with a bucket. Sure enough, a foot-long snake was wriggling on the sidewalk. Amazingly, we were able to coax the snake into the bucket and bring it home. Into the skink's former residence it went:

We went online to research what kind of snake we had found, but with little luck. I e-mailed a query and some photos to snake and lizard expert Gene Ott. He explained that the reason we couldn't figure out what kind of snake we had found is because we hadn't found a snake at all. Instead we had found a "legless lizard." Of course, if yesterday you had asked me to define "snake," I would have said, "legless lizard," so it was surprising to learn that there is actually a distinction between the two. Our find is known as a "glass lizard." You can tell it is a lizard rather than a snake because, among other things, it has eyelids:

But that is not all, oh no, that is not all. For as bedtime approached, Sara returned in a rush from letting our neighbor's cats in. "Would you like to see a toad?" she asked. And out we rushed again. Flashlight in hand, we captured the toad:

Zola poked it disdainfully, and each of the boys had a chance to hold it:

Afterwards, we had some toad kids hopping around the house:

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Epilogue: The green lizard escaped as we were photographing it. The glass lizard is still in the skink's old container. He will be released tomorrow morning. The toad is already hopping his way into the night. Oh, and the kids are in bed. Who knows what Sara might capture tomorrow...