Fingerless glove

looking for what's missing... I'm a knitting, spinning, mother of teenagers with a big dog, a small cat, minus the lovely rabbit Meliflua.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Virginia, United States

Right now I'm listening to "Peace Is Every Step" by Thich Nhat Hanh, reading "How to Change Your Mind" by Michael Pollan, knitting mittens, and thinking about casting on a hat.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Rooting for the Underturtle

Why does the turtle cross the road?
I don't think he even really wants to get to the other side. OK, maybe for that "come-hither" female turtle. This morning I stopped to help my first turtle of spring cross the road. Well, more like air-lifted him. And this isn't the first time. I got an anonymous mention in our paper a few years ago when a local newspaper man witnessed me on a similar rescue.

I can't help it. One sunny day at the lake, when I was about 5 and running to Mom as she called "Time to go", I almost stepped on a wee painted turtle. We took her home for the summer and I named her Paula, since that was the absolutely most glamorous name possible. We fed her well and in the fall we set her free to hibernate. I knew it was the right thing to do, but I missed her.

I've been passing to my kids my wisdom from years of driving (such as it is. ) In the "brake but don't swerve to avoid animals" lesson, I think I forgot to mention the Turtle Exception. We have a fair population of Eastern Box Turtles around here and I find them charming, more handsome even than painted turtles or red-eared sliders. A turtle is not likely to suddenly dash back to the roadside from whence he came. A turtle doesn't suddenly dash anywhere. You can easily drift a little to one side of your lane and miss him.

As tempted as I am to keep one of the little fools for a pet, I know if you take them out of their territory they get discombobulated (much like humans.)
Turtles. Give 'em a brake.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

could be the wisconsin in you. i was home a few years back (probably summer of aught -- or is that ought one) and i saw a woman trying to shoo a grasshopper out of the entryway of a shopko. most places it would be just easier to try to step on it...

8:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't know about that, Bob.

I pick up the turtles, and sometimes the worms, too!

I was born in Philadelphia, but never lived there, but have lived in the Alexandria area from 1962-1981, and then in Manassas since then.

Hate the bugs and bees and spiders, but love snakes!

4:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I thought the turtle's name was Traveler, or was that a different one of the several that found a home in my kitchen. Talk about shooing grasshoppers out, I gently shooed a wasp out of the entrance office at a campground in Alaska and they offered me a job.

6:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Jan, you should visit St. Thomas Cemetery in Poygan, Wis. Snakes abound there by the hundreds.

6:56 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home