New house / new turtle land

Oh hey there, blog friends.

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Phew. I just could not get myself in gear yesterday morning and get to a weekend recap. Actually, myself was in gear finishing up the weekend's laundry and preparing for a new cleaning lady to come later in the day to take care of our floors while Doug replaced my car battery. How's that for a Monday morning? So, no official weekend recap on Monday morning but I'll sum it up in one word for you: busy.

When we moved to our new house (tomorrow will mark three weeks!) we used a large 55-gallon plastic tub to hold our two box turtles until we could build a new habitat for them. I filled the bottom with a bag of shredded bark and said a heartfelt prayer for their safety and well-being.

Well, everything was going fine(-ish) with the temporary quarters until our baby turtle, Casper went missing. Doug was working out of town for a few days and I hadn't see Casper at all, so when he came home he was given the potentially bad-news-task of digging in the bark to find a baby turtle.

The good news is that Doug found her and she was just fine. Bad news is that we discovered the reason she was so hunkered down was an attempt to hide from Rex, our male turtle who is seriously in the mood for love. L.O.V.E. And in such cramped quarters there was no escaping him without burrowing to the bottom.

 So Doug and I set aside some time this weekend to work on building a turtle pen. I had some ideas for the design and material to use, and Doug made it happen. Seriously, my husband is a jewel! He's so accommodating to my requests and worked so hard to make this happen. I love the new turtle pen AND my sweet and awesome hubby!!!

This little hut had been a bird house until we moved and I dropped it and the whole thing broke apart. I salvaged the top of it and thought it would be cute in the turtle pen...



I was right. ;o)









Rexy and Casper really like it too. It was fun to put them in their new space and watch them exploring it. This space has so much potential, and I can't wait to get some grass and other plants growing in there. We also need a few more areas for them to hide, and a better water source, but at least they are out of the plastic tub! And Casper has some space to move around and hide if/when she wants to.

In other pet news, Lucky the dog is a bit obsessed with being able to see and smell the turtles in his backyard. Now prayers are for this new habitat to keep the turtles in, and one very curious pup out.


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PS: Casper is about three years old. Female box turtles typically begin producing eggs when they are five years old and/or 5-7" in length. I'm glad that Rex is in love with her, and I hope he still feels the same in a couple of years when she's ready to reciprocate. ;o)