Funny thing. In my last post I wrote about how inaccurate our weather forecast always seems to be. I mentioned that it was just starting to sprinkle rain but would probably blow over in about twenty minutes. Huh! It's four days later and it's still raining! OK...it hasn't been non-stop but we've gotten about 10" of rain. Most of the country is facing varying degrees of flooding, bridges are disappearing under the rivers, and some roads have become impassable. It's times like this that I really appreciate our land. Sure, things are soggy but we have no worries about flooding. A day of good sun and everything will be back to normal. But wait...this is still the rainy season...this is normal! We are taking it all in stride. Getting some baking and cooking done, more housework than I care to do and running outside every time we get a break and the sun peeks out for a few minutes. Another day or two and we should be back into our perfect, sunny weather.
The rain brought me a really cool surprise visitor this morning. I was in the field doing my daily coconut clean up. The trees drop several everyday and they wreak havoc on the lawn tractor so I tidy up every morning. Well, this morning one of my coconuts was actually a turtle! Way out in the middle of the field...not where I'd expect to see a turtle. The only turtles that I've seen in Belize have been in the ocean so this was special. I think this little guy got adventurous and wandered away from his pond. All the rain has made so many little streams and mini-ponds so he was probably just travelling from water hole to water hole.
After a photo op, I carried him down to our lagoon and put him beside the water. I had a moment of worry that maybe my turtle was a tortoise and wouldn't like the water but after a couple of seconds, he scurried right in and swam away. Very cool!
Now, this part of the story is for my Fort Nelson friends. I have a history with turtles. Years ago, when Larissa was in about grade four or five, I volunteered to look after her school's turtles over the summer holidays. Many Fort Nelson children still fondly remember the turtles, Cheech and Chong, as a happy part of their classroom environment. Well, I shall forever be known as 'the mom who killed Cheech' (or Chong...I never could tell the difference). It's actually part of the reason we had to leave Fort Nelson...just kidding!!
I had a really nice pond in the yard and Larissa's teacher assured me that the turtles would love the pond and not be able to get over the rock sides. Yah right!!! Those little buggers were total escape artists. And how did the myth about turtles being slow get started? They are very fast when they want to be somewhere else. In the first day we lost Cheech, never to be found again. Chong made several more attempts at freedom but we foiled his plans with a plastic kiddy pool for the rest of the summer.
Last I heard, Chong lives (alone) in a tank in the office of the Fort Nelson Secondary School. In the years since the 'incident', I had many occasions to be in the secondary school. I'd spot the tank with the lone turtle, avert my eyes, and scurry by with my head hung in shame!
Now, this part of the story is for my Fort Nelson friends. I have a history with turtles. Years ago, when Larissa was in about grade four or five, I volunteered to look after her school's turtles over the summer holidays. Many Fort Nelson children still fondly remember the turtles, Cheech and Chong, as a happy part of their classroom environment. Well, I shall forever be known as 'the mom who killed Cheech' (or Chong...I never could tell the difference). It's actually part of the reason we had to leave Fort Nelson...just kidding!!
I had a really nice pond in the yard and Larissa's teacher assured me that the turtles would love the pond and not be able to get over the rock sides. Yah right!!! Those little buggers were total escape artists. And how did the myth about turtles being slow get started? They are very fast when they want to be somewhere else. In the first day we lost Cheech, never to be found again. Chong made several more attempts at freedom but we foiled his plans with a plastic kiddy pool for the rest of the summer.
Last I heard, Chong lives (alone) in a tank in the office of the Fort Nelson Secondary School. In the years since the 'incident', I had many occasions to be in the secondary school. I'd spot the tank with the lone turtle, avert my eyes, and scurry by with my head hung in shame!