Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Look What Abby Found In Our Backyard!




Meet Sheldon! This is such a cute story. Elliott and I were inside finishing up his 1st grade test(which by the way he passed with flying colors) Anyway, back to the story....Abby was outside playing in our backyard and she comes racing inside and she was so excited she could barely talk. Out comes this garbled message..."mommy, mommy...guess what we have in the backyard. One of those things with a shell on it!" So I say " you mean a turtle?" "Ya Ya...there is a turtle in the backyard!" Elliott and I jumped up and put our shoes on and went outside to see. Indeed, there was a turtle. I carefully picked him or her up and put the turtle into a large bucket that we had and the kids and I collected grass and leaves to make a nicer habitat for him. Then I gave the kids some lettuce to put in there for him to munch on until we figured out what kind of turtle we had and what they like to eat.

I came inside and stared doing turtle research...thank goodness for the internet! So we have your basic Eastern Box Turtle that is very common to our part of the world. They are fine to keep as pets so I told the kids we could keep "Sheldon" for a while and then we would take him back to the pond in our neighborhood and return him back to nature. But in the meantime we have a new family member. The kids are over the moon with excitement. How cool to find such a treasure right in our own backyard and a wonderful learning opportunity for them. I am sure we are going to be turtle crazy around here for a while.

7 comments:

MaryAnne said...

Cute turtle!

***Sharon*** said...

Both my kiddos just screamed when they saw this pic! (Probably much like Abby did when she found the turtle!) I read them what you wrote and Kailani said, "THEY are lucky!"

April said...

Cuteness! Make sure the kids wash their hands after handling - turtles carry salmonella, but I'm sure you discovered that on the internet, too.

Our kids found a water turtle a few weeks ago - how ironic! (We put Yurtle back in the pond that he came from.)

Karen said...

How incredibly cool. My kids would have been over the moon too :)

Vintage Chicken said...

Fun.. Fun... Can't wait to hear about the adventures of Sheldon the Turtle!

Elizabeth said...

what a fun find!

visit me tomorrow for a girly giveaway! it's not as fancy as your sewing creations, but it's fun just the same. :)

Dawn said...

Just a quick update. Sheldon is doing fine. The kids are still completely in love with him and we are happy to report that Sheldon really loves tomatoes and apple.

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