Turtle

This afternoon a large angry snapping turtle found itself stuck in the middle of the culdesac by our house. Our neighbor Angela rang our doorbell so that we could see it. All the neighborhood kids and their dads were looking at it. The turtle wasn't budging. And it didn't want to be bothered. The stream behind our house flooded this week and the high water must have push the turtle onto the land. And then he got disoriented and hiked up to the street. Nobody knew what to do because the turtle was aggressive and angry. We know a man who lost part of a finger to an angry snapping turtle.

Then little Eva, Angela's 2 year old said, "Put a blanket on it". This suddenly became a great idea. I went into our garage and found an old quilt and also picked up our blue ice chest. Then I went back to the culdesac and put the quilt, doubled up, on top of the turtle. And then I reach down and picked him up. He was amazingly strong and wiggly. But I held firm and placed him into the ice chest. Our neighbor Chris put the lid quickly on the ice chest and he and all the kids raced down to the stream that is behind the mission home. He open up the ice chest and the turtle crawled out. Instantly the turtle could sense that the stream was about 5-6 feet away and he turned in the right direction and quickly waddled into the stream and floated away. It was amazing!




Photos courtesy of Angela Golub.