The Year of the Turtle

According to the Chinese calendar, last year was the Year of the Ox. I'm not sure who gets to decide what animal gets what year in China, but last year at our house in Michigan, we had the Year of the Turtle. While I'm about to write my post, I'm so excited to share this story with you. During the Year of the Turtle, we had some pretty wonderful things take place that we normally could only see on TV animal documentaries.

As I have previously stated in my post Here Snakey, Snakey, Snakey, my family lives in the middle of a heavily wooded area and in between several swamps. Animals love my home, especially reptiles. It's our little Garden of Eden.

Last summer, Gabe, my son, found a painted turtle walking around the yard, and for him, it was love at first sight. He thought she was the coolest thing he as ever found, and he loved that he could hold her. She was medium sized and pretty active for a turtle (definitely not walking slowly or trying to hide like most turtles). Gabe stayed close to her all morning during her fast paced tour of our front yard until it was time for him to come in for lunch.

Later that afternoon, Gabe and Brock, my other son, were playing on the zip line in our yard with a couple of their friends. There was a bunch of loud screaming and laughing while the boys took turns sliding down the zip line. I was watching them from afar while reading a book when I noticed it got eerily silent. The boys were quiet. The zip line wasn't running anymore. My mommy mind thought, "Ooooo it's quiet, how nice!" And then my next mommy thought was, "Oh no, what are they up to now?"

At that time, my crowd of four boys came running at me with surprised looks on their faces. Do you know what they found? They found the same painted turtle that Gabe fell in love with laying EGGS in the dirt right next to the zip line. We all ran back to the zip line and this is the picture I found.

With all the commotion and screaming around the zip line, that sweet, beautiful turtle chose this spot to lay eggs. What a brave momma!!!!

At that moment, the zip line and all other toys were forgotten. We sat there silently for the next hour watching our momma turtle lay egg after egg in the hole she dug. Who needs TV when you have a real live turtle laying eggs in front of your eyes? After awhile the boys eventually found other things to do, but we kept an eye on the turtle off and on all afternoon until laid her last egg. When we noticed she had left her nest, we were greatly surprised that she did not cover her eggs with dirt, she left them completely exposed. We placed a weighted wired bucket over the eggs to make it extremely hard for anyone like raccoons, groundhogs, and my pesky chickens to eat them.

Since Gabe now felt like he was a turtle daddy, I felt a huge responsibility to make sure these eggs survived until they hatched to make my little boy happy. Knowing absolutely nothing about turtles, I did a ton of research and here is what I discovered:

1. Painted turtles lay their eggs during the first couple weeks of June.

2. Turtles search for several days to find the perfect place to lay their eggs that has the correct amount of humidity and temperature. Scientists have no idea how they detect humidity and temperature from the ground. It's one of the many secrets of nature that only God knows. That is why our momma turtle had been so active that entire day, she was searching for the best spot to lay her eggs.

3. The baby turtles hatch in September, and for nourishment, they eat their shells and bugs in the dirt.

4. They hibernate in the ground until March. The turtles then dig their way out of the ground and make their way to the nearest water source.

We kept watch over our turtles all year. Through rain and wind, the hole eventually became covered with dirt. When leaves fell all around our bucket in the Fall, we checked to see if there was any movement under the soil. There wasn't. It was so hard for me to leave those turtle babies outside during the winter when the ground was frozen solid and we had 10 inches of snow and ice covering our bucket. But, I didn't want to disturb them. I knew that God has a master design with everything, and these turtles were created to hibernate and withstand the cold under the ground. Digging them out too early could mean I would disturb the cycle and they would die anyway.

Finally March came. I waited for a day that was beautiful outside with the snow melted and only light jackets needed for warmth to find out if we had baby turtles. Taking a trowel, I lightly dug around our turtle's nesting area. I had read that only a small percentage of turtle eggs actually make it to producing baby turtles, so my hopes were not too high that I would find anything. Digging a lot deeper than I had anticipated, I found a bunch of rocks in the dirt.

Looking a little closer, those rocks had tiny shells and little tails sticking out of their rear ends. Those weren't rocks, those were turtles!!! The turtles were completely out of their eggshells, in fact, I had a very hard time finding any eggshell scraps left behind. When I dug them out, they were moving very slowly, like coming out of a deep sleep. We were so excited!

The kids and I took our babies to school in tiny Cool Whip containers the following week to share with teachers and friends. How often do you get to old a brand new baby turtle? It was an awesome experience for everyone, and all the kids at school fell in love with them. After we showed off the babies, the kids and I kept the turtles in an aquarium at our house for a couple weeks before placing them by the swamp so they could live the best turtle life. I hope they did okay out in the wild.

A couple months after we released the painted turtles, I was going through a mulch pile at our house putting mulch around trees and in my gardens. While I was digging into the pile, guess what I found....more turtle eggs! It was definitely our Year of the Turtle, we couldn't get away from them! Gabe pulled out 33 turtle eggs from the mulch pile. After doing quite a bit more research, we discovered that these were snapping turtle eggs. I also read that once turtle eggs are disturbed from their nest, unfortunately, there is hardly any chance that they can be saved. If I would have known there were eggs in that pile, I would have let them be and have another fascinating year watching turtle babies underground. I had Gabe gently place these eggs out in the woods and cover them with leaves with our sincerest condolences.

Ever since our Year of the Turtle, I have a great adoration and admiration for turtles. They are amazing creatures! Thanks for reading my post to the end, I know it was a long one. I just wanted to make sure to document my entire turtle experience with absolute justice and with love.

Thanks for reading my Country Squawk,

Kelly