I was getting ready to leave the house for a weekend jaunt to Massachusetts. Scurrying to and fro: packing the car, dashing back in the house for a hat, suddenly remembering it would be helpful to have cash, gathering the perennials I had dug; I had just watered the flower pots on the driveway when I happened to look down and there was a glowing orange eft. I hadn't seen one in years. Shortly after I moved to the mountain, there was one summer when we had efts everywhere. Hundreds got squashed on the road. On my morning walks, I would gather them up and put them on the grass. Maybe this will be another year like that one. I am taken with them. They are the terrestrial juvenile stage of the Red-spotted Newt. They live in this stage for a few years then migrate back to a permanent puddle to live out their lives as an aquatic adult. Red Efts live in forests. They are one of the wonderful things about living on the mountain.
