Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
I Am a Toad and I Live in a Swamp
Toad Hall is situated on a hill overlooking the beautiful Swartekill, or Black Creek, Swamp. Usually around Memorial Day, we have an influx of snapping turtles, and occasionally other types of turtles like painted turtles, coming up out of the swamp to lay their eggs in our warm flower beds and compost piles. Turtles, being reptiles, lay eggs that must be kept warm to incubate and hatch. My fluffy, sunny flower beds are apparently irresistible.
Yesterday, we saw several turtles in the yard. One mama got out on top of an old stone barn foundation, about ten feet high, and then fell. Fortunately she is a sturdy reptile and she landed in a flower bed, so she was fine. Here is a picture of her at the bottom of the wall. Her shell was probably about 15-18 inches or so:
Here is a closeup of her diggers — careful!:
One year, one of the turtles decided to take the shortest path from my compost pile back to the swamp. My garden lay en route, but she thought that she could scale my six-foot deer netting fence. I used some bamboo poles to get her off before she took the whole wall down with her, and then we stopped traffic to let her cross the road. She was a big one, with a more than two foot long shell.
We rarely see the baby turtles, so we’re not sure how successful the laying rate is here, but when we do see them they are teeny tiny, not much more than the size of a quarter. I once leaned over to pick up what I thought was a black plastic top and it was a baby painted turtle. This picture is from a couple of years ago, on a day when our young hens laid their first egg and I found a baby snapper:
To get back to the swamp…
Thank you, that is awesome.
I saw this pic, and I’m thinking . . .
Alligator turtle spouse could be within ten inches of biting this guy’s leg off:
“I want my man back!”
Haha! Or even worse: “Oh they’re so cute when they’re tiny babies”
So that’s what they’re actually saying. Next you’ll be telling me CCR was wrong, and there is no bathroom on the right . . .
Snort…
Shouldn’t that be “Ribbit”?
Hahaha! When my sister was in 5th grade singing along with the Beatles, instead of “Don’t have time for trivialities,” she’d sing “Don’t have time for trippy and a tea”
And Jimi Hendrix in Purple Haze sang, ” ‘scuse me, while I kiss this guy.” [the sky]
Have you read Lillian Hellman’s “Turtle”? It’s anthologized in Pentimento, let me see if there’s an original … don’t see one, but I’m getting kinda sleepy, so may be overlooking.
Pentimento is a pretty good book. Includes “Julia.”
No, thanks old friend, I haven’t read it, but I know Vachel Lindsay’s poem about a turtle:
I remember that poem from my childhood.