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.
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.
posted by Gail | 11:56 AM
4 Comments:
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...
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!
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.
Hey Jan, you should visit St. Thomas Cemetery in Poygan, Wis. Snakes abound there by the hundreds.
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