Thursday, October 9, 2008

Turtle Trouble

I save turtles. It hurts my heart to see turtles dead on the road, so whenever we are driving and see a turtle in the road we screech to a halt and move the turtle off of the road and into safety. I think it's because even though turtles can move fast enough to surprise you sometimes, they're still disadvantaged around cars.

This morning on my walk (on the way back from taking 250 new rose pictures!) I was surprised to see a turtle on the road only about 5 houses away from our house. When I got up closer I could see that it was on it's back, all closed up. I picked it up, trying to decide if it was dead. It certainly wasn't moving, and it didn't feel dead...not that I'm sure what dead would feel like. I decided to take it home to show the little kids.

They were very excited to see the turtle. Of course they were sad that it might be dead, but then they jumped for joy when when I promised that we could bury it if it was indeed dead. We left it on the front walk (though not upside down anymore) and went in to eat lunch.

After lunch Rachel ran back out to see the turtle again and ran back in screaming--the turtle was missing! Someone had taken the turtle!

Well--I guess this meant the turtle was alive after all.

I told her to look around in the bushes near the front door, and sure enough, the previously dead turtle had crawled about 8 feet into the bushes.

Now the kids were worried that the turtle was going to starve. But thanks to the magic of the internet we quickly learned that there was a good possibility that the turtle would eat a weed growing in our very own yard. I knew there was a reason for cultivating all those weeds...So the little kids set off around the yard picking weeds to feed the turtle.

At some point Rachel came in with the following information:

"We were going to name the turtle Panpake if it was a boy, and Syrup if it was a girl. But we couldn't tell what it was, so we named it Tortilla. Except Jared calls it Tortil-la."

Pretty soon it was nap time, since last night was Cub Scouts/Achievement Night. Off to bed they trooped, me reassuring Rachel that I was sure nothing would happen to Tortilla while they were asleep.

Of course I was wrong. In that one short hour Tortilla managed to escape from our bushes and left for parts unknown. Rachel was devastated. I just hope that the turtle went towards the woods instead of back to the street!

13 comments:

  1. By the way, I'd like to point out to your tender ego that you have WAY more comments and WAY more visitors than I did for MONTHS when I first started my blog.

    ;)

    In case you wondered.

    You're giving me a run for my money!!!

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  2. I love that you captured it on film before it made its escape. Another fun tale from the Ray chronicles. :)

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  3. Cindy Lynn--thanks to you and wonderful friends like Lindsay & Katie & Megan & Jen I'm very well linked! ;)

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  4. Megan--who knew a turtle could escape so fast!!!

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  5. Just for identification purposes, that is a gulf coast spotted box turtle correct? I can't see the tail but it has all the shell markings of being a female, right?

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  6. Sean, sounds like you know much more than I!

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  7. I used to be a member of the Northern California Turtle Rescue Program.

    To this day I still am annoyed my "TMNT" because when those movies came out, parents bought turtles for their kids and then the kid would say "I saw Donatello jump off a building, I bet you Syrup could." I cared for a lot of turtles with cracked shells.

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  8. Turtles are pretty irresistible. I think Abby would literally pee her pants with excitement if she got to keep a turtle. Nate found one under the lawn mower, but it escaped somewhere quickly and we haven't been able to find it.

    Oh and I'm linking you on my blog stalking list! If you get stats from Ridgecrest CA, those are my desert dwelling friends!

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  9. Sean--sounds like you might be interested in a picture and video from our family reunion this summer. You can look at it here, but please don't leave a comment there. My step-mother doesn't know I un-passworded the family blog!
    http://beingwatson.blogspot.com/2008/07/holden-beach-fun.html

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  10. The family blog was interesting, but mainly because I had never seen a man-o-war creature before. What an interesting looking creature.
    --
    I got out my old books when I got home. It is/was a Gulf Coast Eastern Box Turtle (not to be confused with the Gulf Coast Western Box Turtle). And after reviewing your pictures and the gender deciding pictures in my books, you had a male. Females have a bigger humped shell for mating purposes. The uniformed almost flatness of your turtles shell is probably a dude.

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  11. Amy, you are so funny! I'll keep a watch for your desert dwelling friends!

    Sean--is a problem that we don't live anywhere near the gulf coast? I think I will not tell the little kids that you figured out the gender. I prefer talking about the turtle previously known as "Tortil-la" rather than changing his name to "Panpake." (Although "panpake" is one of the few childish words left in our home and I absolutely love that they still use it...)

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  12. You live a whole lot closer to the gulf coast than I do. Their range is anywhere from Florida to North North Carolina. And they are slowly (very slowly) progressing out past Tennessee.

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