Last Saturday morning I woke up to see some digging in the front yard the likes of which confounded me on close inspection. There were seven or eight places a foot square or more scoured out of the soil and each a few inches deep. There were no hoof prints, and it didn't look like some skunk or fox after ants, so my first thought was that aliens had briefly landed then took quickly off again. Darn those aliens - I really wanted to catch one. The light bulb in the photo is for size..
Since school has ended, I have the additional luxury of reading the daily paper - as thin and as horribly informed as it presents itself - and lo - on this day, a short article with a photo of two elderly gentlemen and a large elderly turtle all grinning toward the camera. The article went on to cite a returning snapping turtle to lay eggs in the sandy front yard of a Gilford home.
I was so excited I ran out and looked more closely at the holes and saw small claw marks and the telltale scrape of what appears to be a tail. One of the holes was covered back in, and there I suspect are the nested reptile eggs. I actually called the household in Gilford and confirmed their siting... and spoke with a very nice lady about all sorts of animal activities in her yard. I think her school has been out for a long time.
I found an easily readable website that tells me to wait 90-120 days to witness the quarter size snappers to leave their nest and parade to the nearest water.
Now here is the karmic return part of the story. When I was young, my brother and I had a turtle from Woolworths store in Framingham, Mass. Actually, we may each have had one. The horribly airless pet section of those stores would sell out small animals under the auspices that children would take care of them and learn something. It's all quite a silly enterprise since we lived in a beautiful woodsy town of New England with more sticks and animals to shake a stick, or animal, at. I remember my turtle in its clear plastic container complete with plastic island and little green palm tree, although I don't recall its name. We of course overfed and over watered it for a few days or as long as a week. But there are more fun things than a sluggy turtle for kids with a short attention span as we had and besides, the plastic container started to smell.
Soon, somehow the turtle was gone. Escaped? Did we take it out to play and forget to put it back? More likely. High and low, no turtle was to be found until a month or two later when I saw the poor dust covered carcass of a dry little turtle under the bed. I think we put it into our small animal graveyard near the stone wall to final rest with the other creatures of our 'caretaking' including many dead birds, frogs, reptiles that we found. No doubt they were all Christian creatures, since a series of little crosses marked their spots.
So if I can keep these little turtle eggs from being ravaged by the local cat, skunk, or fox [I think I'll cover the nest with a small section of chicken wire mesh] and watch them safely toward water when they do hatch, perhaps I'll pay back the debt from years ago. I still cringe when I picture the tiny, dry, wisp of a little turtle head frozen in time looking up at its worldly caretaker. Thanks, Woolworths.
