Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Close encounters of the Turtle kind..


As much as I love kitties, my spirit animal is the turtle..

Over the years I have had random encounters with turtles... starting from one evening I was out playing in the rain much to my parents dismay.  When they heard a far away crack of thunder they called me inside and when I turned to come in there was a great big huge snapping turtle between me and the house.  I wanted to investigate but my parents wouldn't let me.

I saw that (at least I'm assuming it is the same one) once more before I left home.. he was a huge impressive beast..

Then randomly through out my life I would occasionally spot a turtle on the side of the road, or trying to cross it.  I would do my best to help them out.

A couple of years after we moved into the house I live in, I saw a very small snapping turtle by my mail box. It was so odd for him to be there.  I had just driven into the garage a few minutes before, ran in the house for something and left and poof, there he was.  I got oodles of photos of him before he got snappy and left.  He was maybe the size of my palm if not smaller, and he so impressed me.

Today I ran home after leaving for work.  I had brought Odilia with me to get her rabies vaccine, and after she got it I ran her home.  I fed her breakfast, scooped the box, got a little something to eat and off I went. As I was driving out my little four house street, I saw something on the side of the road that I did not remember being there when I drove in.  I slowed down and saw this..


He pulled into his shell and so hoped I would just go away.. but I couldn't leave him on the road.. no matter how slow our street is, cars still drive on it.. so I got a little closer to see if I could encourage him to move along


All it did was cause him to pull into his shell further.  I KNEW it would, but I wanted an excuse to look at him closer.  I had grabbed a plum and by this point had eaten most of it, but there were still some juicy bits left so I offered it to him.. nope, no go.  I was just too frightening. Suppose I can't blame him there.



He (or she, I have no way to know) had some wet muck on his side, so I assumed he was just in the culvert to the fire pond.  I still can't fathom why he would be up on the road, but as the experts say, when helping a turtle cross the road, move him in the direction he is facing  So I picked him up (man he was HEAVY for his size) and put him on the far side of the culvert and put the plum off to his side.   Who knows.. maybe I helped him, or maybe I just irritated him for interrupting his race with the hare..


12 comments:

  1. When kayaking on the Mousam, we see lots of turtles and occasionally get them on our road as well... including one really huge snapper who can stop traffic! Nice to meet your spirit animal once in a while!

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  2. Wow, a move AND a snack! :-)

    I saw a larger turtle on the bike trail earlier this summer and was impressed at how quickly he/she moved across the trail!

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  3. I know a couple of turtles on twitter and facebook but, in all my ten years and three months, I have never, ever met a turtle in real life. MOUSES!

    Purrs,
    Nissy

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  4. My neighbor has a turtle and says she'll bring it over for a play date.

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  5. We hope the turtle made it back to the side of the road...and enjoyed his snack too. :)

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  6. My son won a turtle race with a borrowed turtle when he was 7 years old and has wanted a turtle ever since. I'm glad he lives in this neighborhood, with wild bunnies he will never catch and (apparently) no turtles... but I found a frog in my garage yesterday. We're not keeping it.

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  7. We have a tortoise sisshell and she'll be 15 this October! Mommy says the easiest way to check the sex of a tortoise would be to turn it over and look at the bottom shell. If it's flat, it's female. If it's concave, it's male. :)

    Maybe the turtle wanted to get some heat from the road?

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  8. MomKatt does that whenever SHE sees a turtle on the road and you moved him in the right direction! Bless you for doing that. MomKatt hates thinking what will happen if she doesn't help him, and she posted recently on seeing just that very thing happen to a poor turtle she could not help (too much traffic, she couldn't stop) - the car behind her deliberately aimed its tires at him and ... well, you can guess the rest. It upset her very much.

    Purrs!
    Selina

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  9. Bless you Connie!you are an angel in disguise!xx

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  10. for what it is worth, this morning the bits of my plum were gone.. :) I hope he enjoyed it.

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  11. Huh that's kind of strange. I wonder if he really belonged there? I'm pretty sure it's actually a tortoise. It's hard for me to tell what species from the picture though. Hope he didn't used to be a pet =/

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