American toads have been showing up around the house the last couple days. Tonight I spotted a tiny one, a little over an inch long, hopping through the tall grass and weeds of the yard. He hopped so quickly I didn't try to catch him, but two nights ago, I did nab and photograph a larger toad that was hanging around the garden hose.

I cupped the toad in my hand and brought him inside so I could grab my camera. Just as I got to my desk where the camera was sitting, the toad peed in my hand. Most of the pee stayed in my palm, but a couple drops fell to the floor. After I carted the toad back outside, took my photos, and let him hop away, I came back inside and cleaned up the droplets.

I actually know something about toad pee. Oldfield and Moriarty's book Amphibians and Reptiles Native to Minnesota  states very plainly that in addition to puffing themselves up to appear larger and to avoid getting swallowed, "[American] toads may also urinate on their attacker. This action seems to be the best defense when picked up by humans!"

I have to say, though, that in all my years of nabbing toads, I've never before been peed on. It felt like a tiny rush of cool water over my skin, and the whole experience was very moving.

If all this doesn't sound strange enough already, let me also say that one of my favorite books of all time, Lars Gustafsson's The Death of a Beekeeper, begins with a frog peeing on the narrator.  Here's the opening of the novel:

When I came to the path to the Sundblads', which runs along the lake, smelled the scent of the water and heard the waves beating without seeing them in the darkness, I clearly felt a small frog hopping over my shoe.

Then I did something I am sure I hadn't done since the fifites. I bent down quickly and moved my cupped hands through the wet grass just in front of the spot where it had to be.

This old trick always worked. It hopped straight into my hands, and I could hold it captive in my right hand as if in a cage, it was that small.

For a moment it sat there as if paralyzed, and I put both my hands together to make a larger cage.

There I stood now listening to the wind, a frog in my hands as if locked in a cage, and the same warm wind was continuously moving through the trees. A sour smell came from the swamps on the wooded shore. I clearly felt the frog trembling in my hands.

And then suddenly it peed right on my hand.

I believe that is an experience not many people have had.

The pee of a frog is ice-cold. I was so surprised that I opened my hands and let it hop away. Thus I stood there, deeply moved, above me the wind passing through the treetops, and my hand cold from the pee of a frog.

We begin again. We never give up.

I think that is one of the truest passages I've ever read in a book. And when I've felt troubled or temporarily defeated by something, I've often recalled the final lines and found them to be both calming and sustaining.