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["Jeanne Driese" <jeanne13 AT earthlink.net>]

Doncha just love having time to watch a turtle!!!!  The joys of not having to 
go to work away from the farm anymore!
Thanks for the observations.
Jeanne
tnhillwoman
North East TN zone 6
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Gene GeRue 
  To: Homestead 
  Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 9:57 AM
  Subject: [Homestead] Morning entertainment, country style


  From the kitchen sink window a terrapin undulates downhill over the  
  mulch of the back garden. It appears to be heading toward the baby  
  lettuce. Pauses with head stretched high like a periscope--the head  
  reminds me of Spielberg's ET. Is it a girl sniffing the air for a  
  boyfriend, or a boy inhaling for the irresistible perfume of a girl? 
  Lettuce spared, it changes direction and goes back up the slope to the  
  sod. Across the sod behind the hibiscus that is pushing up new shoots.  
  Now back down into the garden, perhaps that is where the breeze comes  
  from, angling across through the young pepper and tomato plants to the  
  excavation where a hydrant was installed yesterday. Threads its way  
  between the hole and the new hose bib manifold out onto the top of the  
  stone wall. Peers over the edge like a child looking at a dropped toy  
  on the floor below its crib. Decides against a dive. The garden  
  rejected, it moves along and off the end of the wall and onto the sod,  
  goes around the corner and disappears, still searching.

  One could learn a lot from a terrapin.

  The three-toed box turtle, also called terrapin, known to biologists  
  as Terrapene Carolina triunguis, has been reported to live as long as  
  138 years in the wild. I want to know who kept track. It is also said  
  that an age of eighty to a hundred years is normal. Common life  
  stoppers are vehicles and collectors. Three-toed box turtles prefer  
  wooded areas, but are also found in lawns and pastures. In Missouri,  
  courtship--this I have not seen, and mating, this I have photographed-- 
  takes place from late April well into summer. Most egg-laying takes  
  place from mid-May to early July. A female digs a three- to four-inch  
  hole in a patch of loose soil. Three to eight elongated white eggs are  
  laid, covered with dirt and abandoned. I have occasionally happened  
  onto one of these nests, typically in leaf litter near an oak tree. As  
  is the case with all turtles, the eggs and the young are on their own.  
  It is noteworthy that this parenting style has been successful for  
  thousands of years.

  Now the next time a city friend asks what on earth do you country folk  
  do for entertainment you will have turtle watching as an additional  
  answer.
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5:24 PM