Shelly Likes Melon

And what of Shelly, the little box turtle who we found nearly a year after her release? I left you hanging. But it was only because she was so adorable I was afraid you’d choke on the photos and video of her chomping away at hard-boiled egg.

I took a video of her eating cantaloupe. It was just as cute as the egg video. I never tire of watching my little charges eat. It’s food and drink to the nurturing spirit inside me. Shelly's back now, enjoying her melonic interlude.

Aggh this photo almost cripples me. Makes me want to go out looking for her on the east slope where we turned her loose the next day after Sara found her, bearing a plate of cantaloupe and egg. Here Shelly Shelly Shelly. Here’s your bronkfest.

Mmmph.

The minute we got Shelly in the house after "recapturing” her (she really didn’t mind; it didn’t seem like a capture, more like a visitation), I put an egg on to boil. (Egg was her baby food and ever her favorite). In the meantime I fixed her a plate of cantaloupe spiked with Repto-Min, flavors she’d also remember. She tied into it.

Live action, mo betta. Oh, it's so good to see Sara and Kelly again. Sara happens to be writing about her visit to our home on her new blog, God is In the Dirt. 

For anyone reading this who is tempted to think that box turtles are stupid, slow and simple: Nothing that can live 150 years could possibly be simple. Slow, yes. Stupid, never. Ever.

God is in the dirt, and in the box turtle, too.

Shelly the Turtle Likes Hard-boiled Eggs

It is with extreme pleasure and excitement that I offer my latest bit of primitive but amusing natural history cinematography to you, gentle readers. 

Here is the definitive proof that the five-year-old beauty Sara stumbled upon in our sanctuary IS Shelly. Shelly, as you'll remember, spent her first year in captivity eating hard-boiled eggs. Which isn't a bad food for a young box turtle, apparently.

She is as overjoyed as a turtle can be to see another hard-boiled egg. It had been almost a year since she'd eaten one. This video was made July 20, 2012, and Shelly had been enrolled in our Outward Bound for Young Box Turtles program for nearly a year, wandering the sanctuary alone.

Chet Baker fans will find several extremely cute and characteristic cameos from their black-and-white darling in this film. That dog leads a very hard life.

Without further ado:

Shelly was re-released the next afternoon, right where we found her. Bon voyage, my dear turtlet. Come back and see us.

Shelly Comes Home

Sara and Kelly visited us from Toronto during the week of July 19. On the 20th of July, 2012, we walked the meadows and checked the bluebird boxes, finding most of them full of THIRD BROODS. Yowza, what a crazy fun mixed up year! We walked down the woods road that leads to our oil well (the one that heats our house with natural gas, pumped off our own land). I gestured to a long puddle in the scarcely-used road. "This is where I let our turtles go when they're ready for release." I was referring to box turtles that, for one reason or another, need a home. Perhaps they've been found in a parking lot or crossing a city street or walking along a Jersey barrier on a parched highway, bound for nowhere, death on all sides. Perhaps they've been injured and needed years of care and nobody remembers where they were found in the first place. Or perhaps they were hatched and found right in the middle of town, where they'd have no future as wild animals. Like Shelly. Shelly was hatched in 2007 in the middle of Marietta, given to me to raise up in 2008, and released here August 16, 2011. 

We hadn't gone 50 feet from the turtle release puddle when Sara gave a little yelp as she almost stepped on a smallish box turtle in the grassy wheel track. 

photo by Sara Stratton

I got down on my knees and checked to see if everything was OK. And a small bell rang inside me.

I know this turtle. I'm not sure if it's Shoomie or Shelly, but it's someone I know. I know this face, these markings.

Who are you? I know you. Turtle: I know you, too. You were nice to me. Hi. 

 Photo by Sara Stratton

I made a snap decision to bring the turtle in for identification, photodocumenting, and a little culinary pampering. A reward for putting up with my curiosity, with the handling. The turtle didn't seem particularly perturbed to be picked up. 

We booked to the house, me carrying the turtle. When we got to the sidewalk, the turtle's head and legs came out of its shell. As I was opening the front door, her neck stretched way out and her legs started to paddle madly. Her head inclined strongly to the foyer behind the opening door. It was clear to me that she was indicating she wanted to go inside. 

I set her down on the living room carpet and she started off for the corner of the living room where the turtle tanks are kept. No hesitation.

Bum ba bum I know where I am. Dum de dum I'm going there now.

Not so fast, Missy. Let's take a look at the iPhoto archives and see just why you look so familiar to me.

So I picked her up and hit Apple i (my favorite function, the one that finds anything I want on my computer) and typed in Shoomie. Looked at a bunch of jpegs of his 2010 release. No deal. This turtle is not Shoomie. All right. Let's try Shelly. Up popped a double handful of jpegs of Shelly, from lemon-sized youngster to her release date nearly a year ago.

This photo is a little confusing, but it's also awesomely cool. Compare the markings on the live turtle in the foreground to the one in the photo that's up on my computer screen. It's SHELLY!!

The moment of discovery. Agggh ah ha ha ha!! That's my girl!! Photo by Sara Stratton.

And if there were any doubt, our little prodigal peered at the screen and indicated that she would like a  bite of that delicious-looking hard-boiled egg, please. She paddled and dug at the screen. Not exactly a dope, little Shelly. I put her back on the floor to wander the living room and set a pan of cold water and an egg on to boil. 

Was there ever a better present, than to know that three years' tender care of a city-born hatchling had paid off in a thriving wild box turtle, who'd made it on her own on our bountiful sanctuary for almost a whole year? Who'd blossomed into a brilliantly-marked five-year-old beauty? Who still remembered her foster mom and her home and her favorite food?

And all because Sara looked down and said Eep. Shelly was the first box turtle Sara's met personally.

While the egg cooked, we set a little plate of cantaloupe spiked with Repto-Min down in front of Shelly.

  Shelly knocked all the  melon off the plate in her eagerness.  Sara documents the moment.

 Ah, you beautiful little creature. Do you have any idea how much joy you have brought us?

What I know is I have cantaloupe. You are still a very good cook.

 And you, sweet turkle, are the apple of my eye. Oh, happy birthday to me!

 More crippling chelonian cuteness to follow.

Shelly the Box Turtle

Shelly's favorite food EVER. 

My life's gotten ahead of me again. Something about the combination of ceaseless travel, an eight-day power outage, storm damage and Phoebe's Sweet 16 birthday celebration has left me tumbling in its wake. It's also summer, and the photogenic and bloggable moments are coming so thick and fast I'm like a starving person at a buffet...I look at all the stuff and can't pick a single one dish I want. I want them all.

But there's this turtle who's demanding that I tell her story. Right now.

She came to me in 2008 as a yearling, a feisty little thing who was found just hatched in 2007 in a backyard garden on Fifth Street in Marietta.

Box turtles continue to amaze me. People take them out of their homes, find them on roads, figure that their shady backyard in the middle of town is a much better place for the turtle to live than that old woods they were in. People don't understand that box turtles are homebodies, that a suburban backyard is probably the worst place they could choose to "let the turtle go." A few trees and a mown lawn does not a habitat make.

So the turtle wanders, looking for something, anything that it recognizes. And somehow, right in the middle of town, expatriate turtles must find each other, mate, and lay eggs. And somehow this little turtle hatched in a garden.

She was found by a woman who caters food for Marietta College, and the caterer offered her lots of things, but the thing the little hatchling liked best was hard-boiled egg.

Through an article I'd written for the Marietta Times' Natural View supplement, a yearly tabloid-style compendium of natural history pieces in our hometown paper, the caterer found me and offered the little yearling turtle to me to raise.

That's a minimum three-year commitment of care. I took her on, intending to release her when she was big enough not to be eaten by a chipmunk. She'd need to weigh about half a pound, and have a nice hard shell.

In the meantime, the turtlet became friends with Phoebe. Who named her Shelly.

who took her outside for exercise and play.

  September, 2008. Shelly 1, Phoebe 12.

She was fearless.

Her diet improved, to include butternut squash

and earthworms, as well as mealworms and strawberries and melon and Repto-min aquatic turtle sticks, the staple for growing baby turtles quickly and well. Serve them in water, and the Brownian motion makes them look alive.

Three years go by with Shelly eating and growing and sleeping all winter in a cold tank in the basement. There is more to her story. There always is.

Box Turtles, Busted and Otherwise

Bill brought home a box turtle he found on a nearby country road, seeing that it had been injured, but quite some time ago.

When we find such a turtle, we bring it home to evaluate it and see if there is anything we can do for it. A car had run over its hind end, and cracked the plastron near both hind legs.
A rear view showed that, despite his injury, the turtle was fat.Fat is good where box turtles are concerned.

Overall, he looked pretty darn good. He didn't move much, but some turtles are intimidated by carpet and linoleum. He could move if he wanted to, but I suspected he just didn't want to. I sent pictures to an expert turtle rehabilitator in New York, and she confirmed my thoughts that this injury was healed probably as much as it was going to heal, and he was better off in the woods.

Meanwhile, Shelly, the year-old box turtle we’ve taken on for headstarting, is proving to be quite an eater. Here, she tucks into the first baked butternut squash she’s ever encountered.
It’s made with brown sugar, butter, and vanilla extract. Who wouldn’t love it?

Phoebe got the honor of taking the injured turtle back to the woods where he was found.He seemed a little shell-shocked to find himself back home. (Sorry, couldn't resist).As we often do when we're messing about near Buck's pasture, we ran into one of the Warren boys, this time Jay. Every time Jay sees Chet Baker, he sings a few bars of "My Funny Valentine." Chet Baker loves Jay, and Jay lets Chet wash his face all over.I love this picture.