Our Little [REPTILE] Ranch

We must be on some sort of hidden camera show. First it was a water moccasin and then a dragon. Now it is a turtle, another snake, and a little more of our favorite dragon.

So recently we have been synchronizing another group of cows for a flush that we have coming up next week. I have been checking heats like crazy and if I ever see a cow ride another it will be too soon. (I will write a blog about this shortly.) Anyway, when I was driving from one pasture to another, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was a huge buzzard in the middle of a grass field that was recently mowed. But why would this buzzard be doing in the middle of a open field? There was no dead animal that I saw, but I could see this brownish lump. So I decided to investigate and this is what I found.





It was a turtle, and a pretty good sized one. I think that this is a box turtle, but who cares about the specifics. It is a good thing I came because as you can see it was almost lights out for this fella. Since it was Earth Day and all, I decided that I needed to put a rescue mission into action for my shelled friend. So I had a box in the back of the jeep and picked up the turtle and brought him to the house.



First to see my find were the two porch cats, Buttons and Beans. They were rather unimpressed with the turtle. Beans tried to slap him in the face but the turtle must have made some sort of noise, because in mid-swing Beans jumped about 5 feet off the ground.



Buttons also wanted to say hello. He too was unenthused with my find. Oh yeah, dragon also said hello. He is quite the chatty little thing.

On a side note, I do not have a name for dragon. Any thoughts??

Finally Catherine came out to see my new friend. As soon as she saw what it was that I found she yelled out "Mr. TURTLE!!!!" (pronounced: Midder-Durdle). She yelled this with such enthusiasm that you would have thought they were childhood friends. ]

Next we took a couple of close ups of Midder Durdle.





Then I decided to take him down to the creek beside the house and release him.



When I saw this excellent beach front property I knew that it would be a great domain for my new turtle. He was not real sure of what he wanted to do when I sat him down. He just kinda sat there. I was expecting him to come of his shell, tell me thanks for saving him, and then slowly walk into the water waiving as he went.



So after about 15 minutes of him just sitting there, I gave him a little nudge with my foot. Good thing I had my camera on him because he shot off.



He moved so quick this is all I could get.



Also, when I was down by the creek, these stupid birds kept flying all around me trying to get me to leave. But do you notice the good weed kill that I got? There is still a touch of green but that will be gone shortly. Maybe a bazooka this time, I don't know.

The next day, when I got back from judging a showmanship contest, I called Frank to see what was next on the agenda for the day. He said that everything was done for the day, but that he killed a snake. So I jumped on my dragon and flew over to the pens. This is what I saw:

Are you still there? Did you fall back in your chair or run around the house screaming?

This is a chicken snake and although not as deadly as the Coral Snakes, Water Moccasins, Cottonmouths, or Copperheads that we have around this place but still just as scary to this guy. There is also a few alligators down in the swamps of a place that we lease. But I try to stay away from there. I think that a witch lives back there and has nightly sacrifices of birds of prey and stuff like that.

Here is Frank with the snake that he killed. He is not scared of anything - not even a fighting cow coming at him. He thinks of it as a challenge, whereas I think of it as a perfect time to wet my pants and suck my thumb. Anyway, Frank grabbed the snake so I could get a picture of it.

Then after we were done taking the picture of Frank with the snake, we hung it on the fence.

The folklore is that if you hang a snake on a fence it will bring rain. And we did get a little shower yesterday evening. Maybe it was because of this guy.

You may notice that Dragon was not in any of the snake pictures. He told me that he is scared of them and didn't want to get out of the car.

So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to think of a great name for Dragon. Nothing is off limits. But nothing girly - he is a manly dragon (just not when it comes to snakes, I guess he gets that from me!)

Until Next Time!