ode to turtles

There was a little turtle
Who lived in a box.
He swam in the puddles
And climbed on the rocks.

He snapped at the mosquito,
He snapped at the flea.
He snapped at the minnow,
And he snapped at me.

He caught the mosquito,
He caught the flea.
He caught the minnow,
But he didn't catch me!

We released The Leviathan in our pond last night. This was due to the fact that on Sunday evening we spent several hours meticulously searching our house for our little reptilian friend who was MIA from his table abode. We found him covered in dust behind the shoe shelf.

We will miss watching him devour worms and peeking around his rocks at us. He will not miss us. He scooted off into the murky depths without a backward glance. And in a few years we may have a real leviathan lurking in our pond.

We had another brief turtle encounter last weekend. Chico almost stepped on this lovely fellow as we were doing our early morning training. We kept him in a box through breakfast and he shared a few bites of blueberry pancakes with us. Then the kids helped me release him back out into the pasture. If you look close you can see the evidence of his voracious appetite for blueberries clinging to his face. Turtles don't have very good table manners.