Cross Country Trip & Death of a Turtle
I've been on a grand adventure for the last two or so weeks. M, the dog, and I drove from Silver Spring, Maryland to Denver, Colorado, and then onward to the San Rafael Desert in Utah. It wasn't really much of a vacation; I spent the bulk of the time finishing up my grading for the semester, but there were intermittent breaks, and I finally finished the grading about halfway through the trip. Despite the presence of work, it was a much needed break from the usual daily stresses and it provided a break from the habitual routines and scenery. I didn't take many photos; when I did find time to take walks, I wanted to concentrate on being there in the moment, rather than viewing things as a composition for a photo to be looked at later. Here are a few desert photos from the first night we arrived and set up camp.
We had originally planned to stay a few days longer to visit the hot springs, but we were both anxious to get back and get started on the homestead. While camping in the desert I had a nightmare that almost all of my seedlings had either stretched out to a ridiculous height or had died. I was happy to see when we got home that most had survived and in fact they looked very healthy. The tomatoes and peppers have their first sets of true leaves.
We're still not ready to put them in the ground, though. There have been delays with the surveyors (who aren't very communicative), and it turns out that the property lines for our proposed homestead are different from what we'd been thinking. So--all that teasel stomping was for naught, and we're now in the process of deciding once again where to put the garden and the cob house.
Yesterday I walked over the hill to the land and came across a turtle (no photos, unfortunately). I distracted S. so he wouldn't disturb it. I couldn't resist picking it up to get a closer look. It had a beak-shaped mouth and I remembered all the horror stories my dad used to tell me about snapping turtles that had jaws so strong they could snap off your fingers and toes in an instant. I promptly put it back down. I made another trip or two back and forth over the next few hours between the land and the casita where we are staying--I didn't see the turtle again though I figured it hadn't gotten far, given how slowly they travel. I thought it was curious that the turtle would be in the field in the first place since there's no water within a reasonable-for-a-turtle-to-walk-distance.
A few hours later M. rode up with the ride-on mower. The new piece of land is not quite as covered with teasel as the old piece, but there's still quite a lot, as well as grass as high as my hips. He mowed for a few hours and made some progress, but much remains before we can even really see the contours of the land and get a sense for where it would be reasonable to place the house, the garden, and the road.
Later in the evening, we took yet another walk up to the land to take a look at the work we'd done. And that's when we saw the turtle, on its back with its feet in the air. It looked very dead. I felt like my bottom of my stomach fell out from under me. The grief was immediate.
But I walked over and picked it up (I wanted to move it back into the woods and I admit I was a little curious about what it looked like). There was an enormous hole in its shell and the interior was filled with flies. Then its neck and legs began to move. It was alive. There was no way it could survive so M quickly chopped off its head with a shovel. I threw the body into the woods. Someone will feast tonight.
I had been worried that we might mow over it and I think we took reasonable precautions. Still, we did kill the turtle.
I thought about it off and on last night and through most of this morning. While I can't undo the action, I did decide to design our garden to honor the turtle, both through the layout of the garden and in the habitat it will provide.
We had originally planned to stay a few days longer to visit the hot springs, but we were both anxious to get back and get started on the homestead. While camping in the desert I had a nightmare that almost all of my seedlings had either stretched out to a ridiculous height or had died. I was happy to see when we got home that most had survived and in fact they looked very healthy. The tomatoes and peppers have their first sets of true leaves.
We're still not ready to put them in the ground, though. There have been delays with the surveyors (who aren't very communicative), and it turns out that the property lines for our proposed homestead are different from what we'd been thinking. So--all that teasel stomping was for naught, and we're now in the process of deciding once again where to put the garden and the cob house.
Yesterday I walked over the hill to the land and came across a turtle (no photos, unfortunately). I distracted S. so he wouldn't disturb it. I couldn't resist picking it up to get a closer look. It had a beak-shaped mouth and I remembered all the horror stories my dad used to tell me about snapping turtles that had jaws so strong they could snap off your fingers and toes in an instant. I promptly put it back down. I made another trip or two back and forth over the next few hours between the land and the casita where we are staying--I didn't see the turtle again though I figured it hadn't gotten far, given how slowly they travel. I thought it was curious that the turtle would be in the field in the first place since there's no water within a reasonable-for-a-turtle-to-walk-distance.
A few hours later M. rode up with the ride-on mower. The new piece of land is not quite as covered with teasel as the old piece, but there's still quite a lot, as well as grass as high as my hips. He mowed for a few hours and made some progress, but much remains before we can even really see the contours of the land and get a sense for where it would be reasonable to place the house, the garden, and the road.
Later in the evening, we took yet another walk up to the land to take a look at the work we'd done. And that's when we saw the turtle, on its back with its feet in the air. It looked very dead. I felt like my bottom of my stomach fell out from under me. The grief was immediate.
But I walked over and picked it up (I wanted to move it back into the woods and I admit I was a little curious about what it looked like). There was an enormous hole in its shell and the interior was filled with flies. Then its neck and legs began to move. It was alive. There was no way it could survive so M quickly chopped off its head with a shovel. I threw the body into the woods. Someone will feast tonight.
I had been worried that we might mow over it and I think we took reasonable precautions. Still, we did kill the turtle.
I thought about it off and on last night and through most of this morning. While I can't undo the action, I did decide to design our garden to honor the turtle, both through the layout of the garden and in the habitat it will provide.
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