Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Why did the turtle cross the road?

I realized after reading many of your posts about the great things of summer that I had skimmed over several things or left them out entirely.

Case in point: Turtles

I was driving in NE Montana when I spotted something in the road. A turtle, a soon to be a squished turtle, so I stopped and l threw him in the back of the suburban. Much to my cheering kids delight!

We picked up a rubbermaid container, filled it with a few things for the turtle and the boys were happy.

Then two days later I found yet another turtle crossing the road. I saw it the same time as a Border Patrol agent did, but I beat him to the turtle. He said how nice I was to stop to get the turtle safely to the other side of the road. Ha! I said, “well, actually.. um, er… if it’s okay, I’ll just put him in the back of the suburban and take him home, er, if that’s okay”. He said he didn’t think it was a problem. So we had TWO turtles.

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They are Painted turtles. And let me tell you these guys can move pretty quick!

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I told the boys it would be better if we let the turtles go. They thought about it and agreed. We took them to one of our local fishing holes where we had seen turtles before.

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Hey guys, have a great life. Tell us when the fish are biting!

Oh, hey wait!!!! We changed our minds, come back! You can still go but we can’t watch you swim off if you are in the reeds.

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So they picked them off and decided to let them go by the dock.

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Let me tell you what…. when these guys hit the water…..

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They could taste freedom and they were out of there! Talk about fast swimmers. They were at home and happy.

So I guess we’ll never know why the turtle crossed the road, were just glad they did.

13 comments:

More Than Words said...

Oh my gosh, how beautiful!! How sweet that your boys wanted them to be "free!!!!"

Kat said...

Carin,

This is such a funny story. My kids are always picking things up and bringing them home for pets.

When I was a little girl I had a pet turtle (box turtles around here). I called him Zipper. Because he could zip so fast...not. We didn't have rubber maid back then. I kept him in a cardboard box. I used to put him out to sun when it was nice. One day I put him out and we went to town. An unexpected thunderstorm came through and his box fell apart. When we got home just smooshed box...not turtle.

When we lived in the city my big girls always asked me to tell them about my turtle. They were thrilled when we moved to the country and they would see turtles and frogs in their own back yard again. Unfortunately, the current out of control building has upset the environment so that we have only seen 1 turtle in 7 (almost 8) years. I am not a tree hugger or anything, but I hate that the turtles, frogs, bees, hummingbirds...don't get me started... are all disappearing.

Great story. Thanks fro sharing it with us.

JenT said...

How neat! My kids find turtles and keep them too. They have 2 or 3, I can't keep up! There's also, frogs, salamanders...lol

He & Me + 3 said...

Love it. That was too cute. You are so sweet to pick them up to safety. WAy to go!

Wrena said...

:) NO my smile is more like :D

Kim said...

You are such a cool mom! You remind me a lot of my friend Laurie who lives on a ranch with her boys.

Enjoy the rest of the summer, it is slipping by so fast.

Anonymous said...

yeeeaaahh---it was all their idea to let them go free!! :)

I think the old man might have had something to do with that??? Its all in the wording! But at least now they have room to get more turtles! Just think, they almost caught them a pet skunk the other night! :)

Lineman

Shasta said...

That's so awesome!! So much fun for the boys! We had a baby turtle in our aquarium with our fish for a while but decided to let him go too. This is just another reason why living in the country is so much fun!

Alison said...

I think we even got to meet turtle #1. So that is what happened ;) A pet skunk!!! LOL!!!

Thanks for the laugh this morning!

Anonymous said...

When we were little our pet was tadpoles. Lots and lots of tadpoles, which in return became lots and lots of frogs.

Darcie said...

What a good mommy! Do I dare tell you the story of the turtle we saw(that Daddy and Kylie), wanted to stop for and I said, "don't worry he will be fine". You might know the rest of the story...of what we saw next time we drove by. :o( You really did SAVE 2 turtles!

The J's said...

We used to see turtles every year on the road we travel to our convention. A couple different times we brought one back home, but they were pretty small. They always ended up escaping, hopefully for their good!

christy rose said...

What a cute story! There is something about home that makes us all happy, even turtles. :)