Turtle-Watching - August 25, 2018
I simply love turtles. No, I don’t mean the chocolate ones – though if they are dark chocolate with cashews, I’ll gladly take a few off your hands. No, I mean your ordinary everyday painted turtle. When Laur and I are out for a bike ride and we come across a pond, we normally stop and watch for turtles. I look at them and they look back at me from the perspective of millions of years of history – and then they duck for cover.
If I was younger and had a math and science brain and was really smart and really lucky and really wealthy, I’d go to veterinary school and volunteer my time at the Ontario Turtle Rescue. See https://ontarioturtle.ca/ourmission/hospital/ But I’m not any of those things. Still I can donate and put a bumper sticker on our van – “I Brake for Turtles!” (C’mon Laur, just one bumper sticker. We could put it over the ding I put in the lower left corner of the back of the van. Oh, you didn’t know about that one?! Oops!)
Why do I have turtles on the brain? Well, a few weeks ago, Laur went for a bike ride along the Welland Canal without me. (What!?) And he passed a mommy snapping turtle, digging out a hole in which to lay her eggs. The next time we passed by the hole, it was covered over with fresh dirt, and we have been checking in on this nest pretty much weekly. We don’t touch it, of course, we just observe it.
Sadly, on our last bike ride we saw that the nest had been ravaged – likely by a raccoon or skunk. And this is the norm. Mommy turtle’s offspring only have a 1% chance of surviving to breeding age. According to the Ontario Turtle Rescue, odds are that each turtle must nest for several years (or even decades!) before it replaces itself.
This isn’t my only turtle “sads” of late. A few weekends ago we took our Sudbury kids to Belleville’s Reid’s Dairy for one of their famous $1 milkshakes. And then we took them to the nature area behind the store where Granny Marj had taken our four kids countless times when they were little. There used to be goats and bunnies and geese and turtles. The geese were naturally occurring – in fact they were a downright nuisance – but the turtles. Oh the turtles. There was a turtle-food dispenser and for a quarter you could make a herd of turtles very happy – if you could get past the geese.
This visit was a disappointment. The nature area is no longer maintained. The out buildings are unpainted and falling down. No goats and bunnies to bring fresh greens to. Very few birds. But the turtles, well, they have no where else to go. When we showed up – and we were likely the first humans they had seen in days – they got super excited. They remember their glory days when there were always people buying them treats and tossing them to them.
The sadness that I felt was similar to the sadness I felt in the Pixar movie “Cars.” There is a pretty much deserted town called Radiator Springs on the no longer used Route 66. Anytime a car comes along, the town swings into action in hope – only to be disappointed again which the traveller zips past them.
If I lived close by I’d likely include those turtles in my evening walk – bringing them treats. Err, except when I’m in Arizona. But truthfully, the turtles have all they need – insects, pond greens, and likely the occasionally “freed” goldfish. Still, who doesn’t love a little extra attention and a treat to break up dailiness, weekliness, monthiness, yearliness…
And didn’t Jesus say, “Feed my turtles?” OK, it was sheep and lambs – but if He’d been teaching beside the pond behind the Reid’s Dairy in Belleville…
If I was younger and had a math and science brain and was really smart and really lucky and really wealthy, I’d go to veterinary school and volunteer my time at the Ontario Turtle Rescue. See https://ontarioturtle.ca/ourmission/hospital/ But I’m not any of those things. Still I can donate and put a bumper sticker on our van – “I Brake for Turtles!” (C’mon Laur, just one bumper sticker. We could put it over the ding I put in the lower left corner of the back of the van. Oh, you didn’t know about that one?! Oops!)
Why do I have turtles on the brain? Well, a few weeks ago, Laur went for a bike ride along the Welland Canal without me. (What!?) And he passed a mommy snapping turtle, digging out a hole in which to lay her eggs. The next time we passed by the hole, it was covered over with fresh dirt, and we have been checking in on this nest pretty much weekly. We don’t touch it, of course, we just observe it.
Sadly, on our last bike ride we saw that the nest had been ravaged – likely by a raccoon or skunk. And this is the norm. Mommy turtle’s offspring only have a 1% chance of surviving to breeding age. According to the Ontario Turtle Rescue, odds are that each turtle must nest for several years (or even decades!) before it replaces itself.
This isn’t my only turtle “sads” of late. A few weekends ago we took our Sudbury kids to Belleville’s Reid’s Dairy for one of their famous $1 milkshakes. And then we took them to the nature area behind the store where Granny Marj had taken our four kids countless times when they were little. There used to be goats and bunnies and geese and turtles. The geese were naturally occurring – in fact they were a downright nuisance – but the turtles. Oh the turtles. There was a turtle-food dispenser and for a quarter you could make a herd of turtles very happy – if you could get past the geese.
This visit was a disappointment. The nature area is no longer maintained. The out buildings are unpainted and falling down. No goats and bunnies to bring fresh greens to. Very few birds. But the turtles, well, they have no where else to go. When we showed up – and we were likely the first humans they had seen in days – they got super excited. They remember their glory days when there were always people buying them treats and tossing them to them.
The sadness that I felt was similar to the sadness I felt in the Pixar movie “Cars.” There is a pretty much deserted town called Radiator Springs on the no longer used Route 66. Anytime a car comes along, the town swings into action in hope – only to be disappointed again which the traveller zips past them.
If I lived close by I’d likely include those turtles in my evening walk – bringing them treats. Err, except when I’m in Arizona. But truthfully, the turtles have all they need – insects, pond greens, and likely the occasionally “freed” goldfish. Still, who doesn’t love a little extra attention and a treat to break up dailiness, weekliness, monthiness, yearliness…
And didn’t Jesus say, “Feed my turtles?” OK, it was sheep and lambs – but if He’d been teaching beside the pond behind the Reid’s Dairy in Belleville…