Sunday, July 29, 2007

Sunday Soup

Hey!


We have birthdays to celebrate!





The baby turtles are now one year old. If you have been reading Pure Florida for a while, you know the story of the misplaced turtle nest and the egg moving. If not, and you're curious, do a blog search for "baby turtles" and you'll find a couple of posts about their progress.




"Breaking Out"


The photos above are snippets from those older baby turtle posts.


I have farmed out two babies to a fellow science teacher who loves turtles, a little boy who now loves turtles, and my mom.


Mom's turtle lived in her goldfish pond for quite a while and then suddenly vanished. She and I are going to fix a little turtle barrier around her goldfish pond and then I'll send a replacement.

On the down side, I lost one to a stupid mistake which I'll share because if you read PF, you know that what you see is what you get ... including my screw-ups.

The turtles live in a big Rubbermaid container that I carry out and place on a table in the yard for the sunning that is essential to good shell and bone growth. About a month ago, I set them out for sunning, but failed to refresh their water with cool (72F) well water and I then failed to check on them in a timely manner.

When I did think of them, the water had heated up under a powerful Florida sun and two turtles were upside down and the rest were in distress. I quickly flushed them with cool well water, but one of the upside down turtles was unresponsive.

Ever do CPR on a turtle?

I have.

It didn't work, sadly. Eventually I pronounced him dead ... and me careless.

"Party On , Little Dudes"

Still, the entire nest would have been doomed had I not chanced upon the female a year ago. Her nest site was in a terrible location that was too close to the driveway and garbage area.

So, life goes on ... for most of these turtles. We have gotten pretty attached to them, but I still plan to release them (okay, I'm keeping two of them) back into the wild. I thought I would have done this by now, but my pond is still a damp grassy hole, instead of a water filled turtle oasis.

As soon as it fills, in they go.

I promise.




"Wish For A Full Pond"

Being turtles, they needed some help blowing out the birthday cake candle, but we managed.



In other news, at some point this week, Pure Florida will go quiet for a few days. I will be out in the Gulf of Florida, not on some fluffy cruise by the way.

This will be a bit more rustic. It should provide a good source of pics and posts which I will share when they drag me kicking and screaming back to dry land.

Just kidding. Actually, dry land and freshwater feels pretty good after extended stays in the briny.

At least I won't be stuck on some deserted island.

Speaking of that ...



The Blogger poll thingie is turning out to be kind'a fun. It looks like Katherine Hepburn wins, and I guess she probably would be the best conversationalist of the possible choices.


Me?


I voted for Rita Hayworth.
Call me crazy ...

19 comments:

Susan Rose said...

I love your turtle soup photo! You have successfully combined nature photography and food photography. I'm impressed.

I'm a displaced Florida enthusiast, now living in Georgia. You might enjoy my photography blog with its Florida/Georgia pictures.

Please let me know how to do a "blog search" (by subject). I'm sure it's simple, but I don't have a clue. THANKS.

Susan

MinorcanMeteorolgist said...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TURTLES!! I was wondering how these little guys were doing...They're so cute!

R.Powers said...

SusanRose,
At the top of the blog in the upper left corner is a search box and a "search blog" button.

Type in baby turtles and click that button. Should get you there.

And yes I will be visiting your site!
Welcome to Pure Florida!

R.Powers said...

HTEEN,
They definitely have the cute thang goin' on.

threecollie said...

Happy B'day to the turtle clan....did they enjoy their "cake"?

Anonymous said...

How cute. Enjoy the Gulf, and I'm looking forward to pictures. Dolphins, please. I miss the Gulf terribly...

robin andrea said...

Those turtles are definitely the cutest. Glad to see them celebrating with a cupcake and candle.

Have a grand time on the Gulf. I can't wait to see what you'll have seen when you post the pics of your adventure.

Sharon said...

Awwww, happy birthday!! Ever since my little one saw "Finding Nemo", every turtle in the world is DUDE!! Yeah, I guess turtles can't pucker... ;)

Deb said...

So baby turtles need sunlight for shell formation? I'll have to tell that to the two painted turtles we have in a container inside here. We'll bring 'em outside tomorrow for some sun.

And, I have been witness to CPR performed on snapping turtles that have been caught in our trap nets below water level. Sometimes it works.

Have fun on your deep sea adventure!

R.Powers said...

ThreeCollie,
Actually they enjoyed some lettuce, but I can vouch for the tastiness of the cake.

Laurao,
Where I'll be, the dolphins exhaling are just one of the sounds that lull you to sleep. I'll try for dolphin photos.

Robin,
I guess you can see why we got attached to them. They'll even eat out of your hand.

Sharon,
I love the surfer turtles in Nemo, such an adventurous bunch.

Deb,
Wow, I'd think twice about liplocking with a snapping turtle.

Deb said...

FC- No liplocking involved, just pumping on their shell a bit to get things moving. I would draw the line at kissing a snapping turtle!

R.Powers said...

Deb,
I actually did the whole CPR routine, pump the plastron blow in the nostril/mouth... kind of like infant CPR.

LauraHinNJ said...

I want to say there's something not right about you for fixing a little birthday cake for a couple of turtles, but I can't. It's very sweet of you!

I forget what kind these are? I'm surprised they're not bigger - they still fit on that spoon!

pissed off patricia said...

Hope it was a Happy Birthday day. Did anyone eat too much cake and ice cream? I know turtles can get pretty wild at a party. ;)

Anonymous said...

I guess I'm crazy as well, I was the other one that voted for Rita.

R.Powers said...

Laurahinnj,
Florida Cooter is the brand name.
The spoon pic is the old one reposted, they are growing!


POP,
I called an end to the party when they started looking shell shocked.

RCW,
Crazy like a fox.

Rurality said...

I started to leave a comment about certain grassy holes not even being damp, but then realized that was SO not what I wanted to say...

Cathy said...

Dang! - you're a nice man. And a funny one. Those birthday pictures . . . . . :0)

R.Powers said...

Rurality,
oops!

Cathy,
Thanks! Turtles only seem calm on the TLC. In person, they are quite the party animals.