TBnJ

About an hour ago, I went to go retrieve the cordless phone from its base. While I was doing so, I could hear Blue Dog and Red Dog barking up a storm. I went into J's room which is the only one that overlooks the dogs' yard. I could see them barking, but not at each other. They looked like they were barking at the fence. Then I saw it very clearly: a turtle walking along the base of the fence. I grabbed the camera and ran outside into the dogs' yard. The turtle was about 8" long. And the turtle, for some odd reason, was trying to get away from the hunting beagles. The beagles managed to chase it behind a hose winder where it got kind of stuck, so I moved the contraption a bit to free up the turtle. I then worked on wrangling beagles. I eventually got them to follow me into the kids' yard, and after a bit more chasing, got them inside the house. Mercifully, the gate to the dogs' room to the yard was already up so I didn't have a repeat experience of the 'possum hunt just over a year ago.

I then did what any sensible woman would do in this situation: I called Daddy-o. He had just picked B up from school and was on his way home. Within about three minutes, they arrived. We went into the backyard, and there was no turtle where I had last left it. This is a turtle, so it shouldn't move fast, right? Daddy-o was just kind of looking at me like I was nuts and was asserting that he didn't know how a turtle could even get into our yard. I assured him that I had photos and that there was a turtle. Finally, I spotted the turtle on the other side of the yard wandering near a pile of bricks. So we went over and waited for the turtle to crawl out to the other side of the bricks. While we were waiting for the turtle to move again, Daddy-o again questioned how the turtle got in the yard. I sarcastically told him that I was so bored today that I went out looking for a turtle, caught it, and put it in our yard. B gave me a befuddled look and asked why I wanted to catch the turtle. I had to explain to him that I was just being silly and that the turtle meandered into the yard on its own.

Once the turtle came out from behind the bricks, Daddy-o caught it. He put it in a box that B was holding for this purpose. Daddy-o and B then walked down to the neighborhood creek about three blocks away and relocated the turtle. I'm not sure if this was the best thing to do for the turtle, but I don't think leaving it in the dog yard for it to find its way out would have been a good idea either. The beagles were pretty certain they needed that turtle for dinner or for a play toy or something. Relocating it to the front yard for the neighbors' cats to attack didn't seem like the best idea either. We're just very confused as to where it came from in the first place!

Edited to add: T's first comment when told about the turtle was, "How did it get in our backyard?" This got Daddy-o back on that topic since he now had a captive audience who also wanted to discuss the topic. Obviously T is his father's son. T looked at the pictures and told me that it was an orange eared box turtle, but it's more likely a red-eared slider.

Labels: around the house, dogs, kid sayings