Book of Days

Nature study at our house recently.

First, we’d like to introduce you to Franklin, our red-painted turtle. Franklin is six years old and was so named in honor of the Franklin in the children’s book series which my son loved when he was younger. It seems though, Franklin, turned out to be Franklina in the end. Somehow that name just didn’t sound right though, so this poor she turtle has retained her boyish name.

Now, a month or so ago, Franklin presented us, for the first time with eggs, yes I did say eggs, and yes she is our ONLY turtle.

How? Well that’s just what we asked when we called a local pet store only to find out that this is normal for female turtles of Franklin’s age. Thank goodness. We breathed a sigh of relief and then did what any good homeschooling family would do. We broke them open!

Well, she has since given us a few more presents, normal so we’re told, and no we don’t expect to be proud grandparents any time soon and no we did NOT scramble the eggs for a snack as my husband teasingly suggested to my son, who was aghast at the thought :)

And, speaking of snacks, this morning as I was reading to Josh, he called to me to come quick to the window where he was sitting. Looking out I saw the object of his curiousity, a white-tailed antelope ground squirrel (long name for such a little thing isn’t it) sitting on a wall we share with our neighbor, sitting there, complacently having a snack of a small fruit from one of said neighbor’s trees.

As we watched, the poor thing lost his snack over the wall, scampered about a bit and then finally rested dejectedly on the wall.

We couldn’t help but giggle as we commiserated with him.