It's Like Golden Corral for Turtles

(click to enlarge)

A Day in the Sun

This picture was taken on one of the last days I saw the turtles out. We've had a few cold nights (upper 30's) and the turtles are digging in to hibernate. This time of the year always makes me a little nervous for them turtles. They pretty much stop eating in preparation for hibernation (so as not to have food in their stomachs that will rot while they are hibernating according to what I have read). They dig down and bury themselves, but when we get a warm day right after they have dug in, they come back out and walk around a bit. I never know if they are looking for food or are just out because it's warm. I don't know if I should offer them food or not (do they need the food to stay strong through their hibernation, or would the food in their stomach be bad for them during hibernation?). The last time I tried to feed them I didn't have any takers, so I guess they know what they need. They made it through last year, so I image they will be fine again this year.

Turtle Doctoring?

This is turtle #4, Gina. Before she came to us she had been hit by a car. The back part of her shell that is jointed and can close up her shell had been injured. This part protrudes downward and scrapes on the ground. She was scratched up and starting to bleed last week, so I cleaned the area, put antibiotic ointment on it and taped it for a few days to help keep it clean. Right now she is eating and walking around, so I guess she OK, although I suspect that part of her shell hurts. We are going to continue feeding her and keeping her wound clean. From there, we'll have to see what happens.

One, Two, Three...FOUR Turtles

This is Grumpy O'Mally. He is a Three-Toe Box Turtle and we found him while geocaching. I believe he was still hibernating when we found him. I thought he might be a cleverly disguised cache, so I picked him up. When I realized he was a real turtle, I thought it might be fun to bring him home for a day or two and let Amanda watch and possibly feed him. Somehow, Amanda was able to experience fear and "love" at the same time. She literally screamed when I made her touch him, but then she cried when I wanted to let him go. So I ended up building a pen outside in our back yard and he came to live with us. Amanda named him "Grumpy" because he hissed when he first saw us and who knows where "O'Mally" came from. Does he look Irish to you? Grumpy's favorite food is Romain Lettuce (actually, any kind of lettuce, but we get the darker lettuce so he can have more vitamins). We call him a "he", but we don't know for sure.


This is Little George O'Mally. "Little George" is what Amanda came up with when she saw his size. "O'Mally" because that became the official last name of the newly formed turtle family at the Hurt household. Little George came to us from our Pastor's swimming pool. He fell in and could not get out. He was swimming for all he was worth, and fortunately for him, Mrs. Debi rescued him and called us. We brought him home to the Hurt turtle pen (large pen outside) so he could avoid future "incidents" in the pool. Little George likes sweet fruits like strawberries and cantaloupe, but he's a meat eater at heart. He loves worms and bugs and will even devour hamburger, chicken or ham if it's dropped into the cage. I think he is the most fun turtle. He knows I am the "food guy" and he literally comes RUNNING when he seems the worm container. Near as I can tell, Little George is a Texas Ornate Box Turtle.


This is Grace O'Mally. "Grace" because Amanda decided this one was a girl and because we had "G" names for the other two turtles. Grace lived with a family from church who had a college age son. When he left home, they kept Grace for a while and then offered her to us. A third turtle? Sure, why not. We told them she would move from her indoor aquarium to our outdoor pen and would have to learn how to fend for herself outside (i.e. figure out how to dig in the mild Texas winter and hibernate). She did just great. Grace is not a big lettuce eater. She likes strawberries, bugs and worms. Grace is a Three-Toe Box Turtle.


This is Gina O'Mally and she is the newest edition to our turtle family. We just got her this weekend. When you have turtles, I guess word gets around. Gina came to us from my mom's, hairdresser's son! He found her on the side of the road and went to move her off so she would not get run over. When he did, he noticed she had a cracked shell on the underside of her shell (called the plastron) and her left, back leg (not show here) is missing a foot! The leg is all healed up and she gets around fine. We know Gina is a female because she laid eggs at the other house before coming here, but some animal got to the eggs and so there are no baby turtles. So far, we have seen Gina eating strawberries and worms. Gina is also a (three-footed) Three-Toe Box Turtle.


This is our turtle pen along side our back porch. It provides plenty of shade, a small "pool" for drinking and soaking, logs to "hide" under and crawl on (see Little George's picture above), direct sunlight (also necessary for healthy turtles), it is easily watered down if we have not had rain in a while. The dirt is soft enough for them to dig to partially bury themselves to stay cool in the summer or to completely bury themselves to hibernate for the winter. The pen is about 9 feet by 16 feet.

Mystery Unsolved

Well, the turtle mystery is unsolved. We checked with the guy who we thought might have put the turtle in our yard, and he said he did not. And then, upon closer examination we noticed that the new turtle had a flat shell and webbed back feet...a water turtle. Looking even closer, we noticed a light red spot behind it's eye. This turtle is a Red Ear Slider...it not only likes the water but spends most of its time in the water. There are no creeks, ponds, etc. within a couple miles of us. We have no idea how this water turtle ended up in our back yard. Since it could not stay with our box turtles, we took a few more pictures (pictured here with Little George), measured it (8 inches long, about 6 inches wide) and looked for a place to let it go.


Amanda and I headed to a spot on Lake Arlington where we used to have a geocache. On the way down to the water, we saw several more Red Ear Sliders so we figured we picked a good place. Amanda took a picture of me with the turtle just before I set it down on the bank.


As soon as my hands came off the turtle, it dove into the water. If you look closely you can see it under the surface of the water (above and to the right of the shadow of my head) just before it disappeared into the muddy depths. We walked back up on the bridge and spotted it coming up for air and swimming around a couple times before we left.

The Good, The Bad, The Puzzling and Something to Be Thankful For

THE GOOD

This is a picture of the Prava Suites near the Galleria Mall. This picture off of their web site will have to do since I forgot to take our camera! But Brooke and I got away for the weekend to celebrate our 14 year anniversary (which was actually on the 12th, but we were just now able to get away). My parents came to pick up Amanda after VBS on Friday, we finished cleaning up the church after VBS and were able to head out around 4pm. With the rain and traffic, it took us an hour to get there, but the hotel was beautiful. It had a huge atrium with a a fountain and glass elevators looking into the atrium. We stayed in a nice suite that had a living room area, a large bathroom and a bedroom. We checked in, went to Chili's for dinner, walked over to and through the Galleria Mall to see how the "other half" lives/shops, watched a {loser!} movie and then did not stay up too late since we were both worn out from VBS. Got up this morning, used the GPS to find an IHOP, had a good breakfast, picked up Amanda and came home. As always, wish it could have been longer, but it was really nice to get away just the two of us.

THE BAD

This week, our washing machine started making noise. I know NOTHING about fixing problems like this, but since I'm a guy and it is expected, I pulled the thing out, unscrewed the back panel, took it apart and looked at it. Yup, the motor was making "a noise". My diagnosis...the thing is going to die soon. Time to start looking for a new one. (Part of the "Something To Be Thankful For": we have some friends and their parents just bought a new washer/dryer and said we could have the washer...free!). Anyway, I put it back together and told Brooke we would use it until it quit working. Well, after we got back today, Brooke went to wash and it quit working. I tried to pull it out and it was stuck. You see, several months ago the washer developed a leak and we didn't know. It leaked for weeks (maybe months). I only found the leak because the floor started to warp from all the water damage. So today, the washer stuck because the leg had worked it's way through the linoleum and into the rotted floor. I pulled it out and decided I would tear up the linoleum and put down a piece of plywood on top so we would be OK. I did not realize that once I tore the linoleum off I would be able to see to the ground! The sub-flooring had rotted that bad. I started trying to tear it up and figured I would have to replace all of that myself, but it did not take long to figure out I was in over my head. I called my Dad, but he was not home. I knew I was in trouble.

That was 3pm this afternoon. I walked over to the church to grab some tools and a friend was there to help me put chairs back in the sanctuary. He had not gotten the message that the chair setup time had been moved to 4pm. I'm not sure Mike would see it as a "God thing" since he ended up helping me for the next 4 1/2 hours, but I sure saw it that way. I told Mike we weren't doing chairs until 4pm and told him I just came to get some tools. When I told him what happened, he volunteered to come help me. He ended up helping for an hour, helping me put chairs up in the sanctuary and then coming back and helping me for another couple hours.

SOMETHING TO BE THANKFUL FOR

This is what the floor looks like now. It may or may not get tiled. But the important thing is, it is no longer rotten and I can get my washing machine and dryer back in there now. Oh, I forgot to mention that the guy who built the house covered half of the sub-flooring with cement (see picture above, right side) and the other half with particle board, Masonite, three layers of linoleum and some roofing paper (that black stuff) thrown in for good measure!

What I am most thankful for (besides having the project done) is my friend Mike. Mike and I are not like "best buds" who do everything together, but he proved to be the truest kind of friend today. He gave 4 1/2 hours of his weekend to help out a guy who didn't know what he was doing (me) and who would still be working on the project had it not been for his (Mike's) help. I could have covered the hole, but Mike did some stuff that I never would have thought of (which would have caused me problems later had he not done it) and it certainly looks a LOT better than if I had done it myself. I am so very thankful for a friend like Mike.

THE PUZZLING

Brooke let the dogs out this evening and Sully ran up to something and started barking his head off. It turned out to be this large box turtle. I tried to put the turtle next to Grumpy (our largest turtle) and Little George (our smallest turtle) for a size comparison, but since the new turtle would not come out of his shell for a picture, it's hard to see how big he really is. We're not exactly sure how he got in our yard. Brooke says one her VBS workers mentioned finding a turtle in his back yard, but Brooke thought he said he had let the turtle go. All we can figure is this guy heard we had turtles, so he brought it here. I don't know...we'll ask him tomorrow. In the meantime we'll take some more pictures before taking him out into the woods near a nice creek and letting him go. He's pretty cool, but he's too big for our turtle pen and I'm not sure how we'd get him enough to eat.

So there you have it: The Good, The Bad, The Puzzling and Something to Be Thankful For.

Another Turtle Update

No, not another turtle...just another update about the turtles. Grace O'Mally made it through the winter. Although she was the last of the three to make an appearance this Spring, she seems to be the first one who has determined hibernation is over with for the winter. She dug out yesterday and spent the night above ground, woke up and had some breakfast this morning. Grumpy and Little George are still under ground.