Dreams of lost toads

 Lost Toads

Remembrance Day for Lost Species, 2020

It was cold. I sat and thought about the toads I know and love, of toads that have gone: the beautiful Golden Toad (Incilius periglenes, last seen 1989) of central America, of frogs so imperilled there may be only 1 or 2 individuals left (Hula painted Frog, Discoglossus nigriventer), of Mountain Chickens, (Leptodactylus fallax) wonderful, delightful and with their diminishing populations now being ravaged by chytrid fungus infections*

It was cold. I thought about what I already do, what could I do more of? What projects I could support, where a pair of wellies, a bucket and willing hands and might help

It was cold. I found my own stillness and thought of hibernation, of damp, patient lovelinesses folded into a deep, dreaming (?), sleep. Do toads dream? Who knows? But they have an ancient lineage to dream about

This was my Remembrance Day for Lost Species evening. A group of us had been planning a Creative Day to mark the occasion: gathering in the hills here to talk and draw and paint and plan. But no. Instead, I was here, human alone but in good amphibian company and it was cold. So I gathered so amphibians from the shelves, spread out some sheets of black paper, grabbed a handful of oil pastels, pens and scraps of paper and started to doodle

A HEART FULL OF TOADS

Sleeping.

Hiding the jewels of our eyes,

In the gravelled mud of our skins.

Sleeping,

A long slow slumber in the welcoming dark.

Sleeping, 

Still as stone, still as death,

Still as the shadows we are wrapped in.

Sleeping,

To dream of passion and ponds and

Spawn in a Toad Queen’s necklace in the weed.

And you, traveller in a toad’s dream,

What do you bring to the lost people

Of the hills?

I will rest beside you,

I will stand between you and harm,

I will sing your wonders to an unheeding world.

And come the spring when you wake,

And this world contrives to trap you,

Contain you, confine you, restrain you,

Hinder you, thwart you,

Block the pull of the home pond

With walls, with channels, with concrete and hostility

I will be and

I will rally,

The hands that lift,

The boots that wade,

The buckets that carry,

The hearts that smile,

And help you to the bliss,

Of the cold, dark water,

And the family that thrills,

Raising wonder to the skies.

For Toad is always there,

Inside me, beside me.

Connection,

Comfort, Inspiration,

Companion.

Cousin.

A bit of background

Remembrance Day for Lost Species, November 30th, is a chance each year to explore the stories of extinct and critically endangered species, cultures, lifeways, and ecological communities. 

Whilst emphasising that these losses are rooted in violent and discriminatory governing practices, the day provides an opportunity for participants to make or renew commitments to all who remain, and to develop creative and practical solutions. 

Remembrance Day for Lost Species honours diverse experiences and practices associated with enduring and witnessing the loss of cultural and biological diversity. 

(Information from RDLS website)

Useful links

* Robin Moore: In Search of Lost Frogs, Bloomsbury, 2014 – a book for inspiration and sorrow

Action: visit FROGLIFE  for amphibian and reptile related conservation in UK

Immediate action: why not buy a friend or treat yourself to a copy of the Froglife Toad print (limited edition so get in quick!)

Toads On roads: add you feet, wellies, buckets and best wishes to the toads on Roads scheme

For amphibians there is also

Save the Frog Day

But RDLS reaches out without an amphibian emphasis (that is my personal stuff) so visi them for ideas and maybe look at  the Loving Earth Project and CelebrationEarth! for ideas (Loving) and people who will celebrate emotional and spiritual responses to nature as well as practical ones (CE!)

Images:

First three images: c G MacLellan

Magnificent footnote toad: C K Taylor

Lost Castles - make your own!

Lost castles

Build a castle, build a tower, build a landscape

where adventures might happen….

 

Make your own medieval world: a castle, a cathedral, a palace, the lost houses of your town?  Mixing history with stories, invent a world of strange and wonderful places; with towers and drawbridges, secret passages and hidden treasures, moat, dungeon, dragon or despair. Let your medieval imagination get carried away and make a pop-up castle to take home.

 

This is an online event for the Festival of Archaeology. It is also a Celebration:Earth! event, reminding us that the world we live in now has grown out of centuries of stories and adventures. There is a short film of this activity on the Buxton Museum and Art Gallery page if you'd like to watch rather than read

 

Do some research first? Have a look at pictures of castles or palaces or whatever it is you would like to make! Find out about their features and use that information. Look at the shapes of windows and doors, craving son walls, statues. Could you show where an oubliette has been forgotten? Where a garderobe disgorges? Can you sneak in a sally-port

 

We’ll describe this activity as if we’re making a medieval castle. You could take the same idea and make a Roman fort or a beautiful church, a palace or a witch’s exciting house

 

 

Now, flex those imagination muscles, exercise your scissor fingers and your colouring thumbs and join us to build a castle, build a tower, build a landscape where adventures might happen….

 

 

You will need

·      A piece of cardboard: white A4 or A3 is best but this activity will work with cereal packet card as well or anything that you can cut and roll without it cracking

·      A piece of stiff card as a base

·      Scissors

·      Ruler

·      Felt pens or colouring pencils

·      Sharp scissors

·      Small ball of modelling clay

·      PVA glue

·      Masking tape

·      Craft knife and cutting mat

·      A magazine with pictures to cut out, or tissue paper or wrapping paper

·      Barbecue skewers (one for each puppet character you want)

Picture: Low storycastles 1

 

 

Step 1. Getting ready

Use the ruler to draw a line maybe 2cm in from one of the long sides of the card (line 1). Take the rule in another 3 or 4 cm and draw another line (Line 2)

 

Step 2. Drawing the castle

Above Line 2 draw your castle: think of it as a castle unfolded so work your way right across the card. There might be towers and battlements, and another tower, and a hole made by a cannonball. There might be arched windows, a door, arrow slits. Use Line 2 as a guide and don’t draw the top of your building further down than that line. If you do, you might weaken the whole castle. Don’t draw below line 1 – that will be used for something else

 

Step 3. Cutting out and colouring

Cut out the castle. Cutting out windows: you might recruit a grown up with a craft knife and a cutting mat, or if you sit your castle shape so the window you want to cut out is on top of that lump of modelling clay, you can safely push the pencil through the card and into the clay. Give the pencil a wiggle. This should give you a big enough hole to slide some small scissors in and then you can cut out the window yourself.

Colour the castle in: completely? Or just draw in stones and ivy and decoration? Up to you!

All done? No! add a little bit more! How about some glitter?

 

Step 4: all decorated and looking wonderful?

Now cut tabs along the lower edge of the castle, cutting up to Line 1. Do your cuts about 2 cm apart

Run some glue along one side of the castle, then roll the other side round so they just overlap. Carefully press into place. Maybe use a bit of masking tape to hold it together while the glue dries or staple it if you have a staple. Carefully, fold the tabs out so that your castle will stand on the table with its tabs spread out like little feet

 

Step 5. Stand that castle up!

Turn your castle upside down and put a small squidge of glue on each tab. Gently stand on the castle on the tough card. You might need to adjust things a bit so that it stands straight and proud. Then press the tabs down. More masking tape will hold them in place while the glue dries. Now, rather than having a castle standing in a muddy cardboard square, decorate the castle surround with scrap paper or torn up magazine pictures or whatever (we sometimes use green sponges for bushes, grey ones for stone). There might need to be a paper moat) draw your own crocodiles or piranha perhaps). Step back and admire! You have a castle!

 

Characters

Having a castle means you might need a story to tell. Use some of your left-over card (or find some more) to draw someone to send on an adventure. Stick them onto a barbecue skewer (if it is very sharp, you could snip the point off with a pair of scissors so it is less likely to stick in someone!)

 

Extra elements: if you started with a larger piece of card you could use that to make the outer wall of you castle while a smaller piece of card could be used to make a keep inside the courtyard of the larger piece. Experiment: can you add a drawbridge?

 

 

We made an adventurous explorer. We added a dragon. There might be treasure?

 

If you want some help with characters, there is a pdf attached that you should be able to print out of explorer children and some castle people. Castle characters sheet