Don't Back Down

As we were on the way to the lake today, we noticed something next to the road - a turtle! Those of you who have been reading for a while probably realize that we're a bit sappy when it comes to animals in need (we already have four stray dogs), and seeing a turtle along the side of the road trying to decide whether to cross or not, well, it just hits us right in the breadbox. So naturally I made my wife pull over and turn around so we could check him out.

The poor little guy was just sitting there, with his legs all tucked up under the shell, his head barely poking out. I'm not sure if he was just intimidated by all the cars passing by or if he had been hit by someone already - but being that he was on the stripe next to the road, I figured that I needed to at least move him off to the side. Since the kids were in the van, I thought that the least I could do was show them, so I took him so they could see. Luckily, he wasn't too big. The last turtle we saw near the road was a monster - when I tried to move him, I almost lost a hand.

This little guy just stayed in his shell for the most part (which was a beautiful shell).

As I went to put him back, only off to the side of the road, I thought perhaps he'd enjoy being nearer to the lake. Not being terribly familiar with turtles, I just thought that it would be nice if he wasn't standing on the highway, but instead had a nice country atmosphere around. It just seemed like the right thing to do. So we made him a small bed to lie in (on my lap) and off we went.

Eventually, he did poke his head out, but not very much. Mostly we just looked at his shell - which again, was gorgeous - and tried to come up with a name for him. Even though we were clear right from the start that we wouldn't be keeping him, we thought we'd give him a name so he felt more comfortable with us. Unfortunately, we could not agree.

So everyone gave him one name.

That meant the little guy had a rather length name: Fluffy - because turtles are oh-so-fluffy - Lucky - for obvious reasons - Ogee - I'm not sure where this came from - Wilson - because one of the patterns on his shell looked like Wilson (the Volleyball) from Cast Away. And of course, Everett. So Fluffy Lucky Ogee Wilson Everett it is. Which worked out well, because his initials - FLOWE - matched perfectly to Flowe's Store Road, where we found him.

However, we also wanted to find out a little about him. Thinking he was a box turtle, I headed out looking, and sure enough, it seems that he is actually an Eastern Box Turtle, which can live as long as fifty years. Wow. We weren't planning on keeping him, but that's a long-term commitment!