Turtle!

A turtle was in our yard today.  Here's how it went:

I was ambitiously tackling some waist-high weeds.  Ok, maybe they weren't quite waist high. But they were getting there.

Suddenly I saw a green head on a long-ish neck and immediately assumed it was a snake.

I think I scared the heck out of him, and then he scared the heck out of me.  But this really is more of a Which came first, the chicken or the egg situation.  It's hard to tell exactly who freaked out first.

Bottom line is, I shrieked and he scrambled.

That's when I realized he wasn't a snake, he was a turtle.

But of course, I immediately thought Worst Case Turtle Scenario: a snapper.

After I took a breath and half a second to actually look at him, I realized he wasn't that, either.

I called to the kids to come over and check out the little guy.  We looked at him for a minute, then set him on the grass so he could go scare the pants off somone else.  Like an earthworm or something.

You can tell from our forced smiles that this was not a sad goodbye.  All parties agreed it was for the best.

 

Parting is such sweet sorrow...