Pencil-thin Penis…
Sunday morning I headed west to meet a friend at an outdoor art festival.
Around here, it’s a good idea to stay alert for critters that might wander from the woods to the edge of the road. Deer, gators, bears and such.
The only deer I saw was a small white-tail lying dead in the weeds. Poor thing.
The deep ditch was about half full of water but I saw no signs of gators. This time.
I did see a wild turkey strutting his stuff but he was heading back to the woods, so no worries there.
About a quarter mile past the turkey I spotted something.
It was an upside-down turtle, about the size of a big salad bowl, and his stubby legs were spinning like propellers.
He was trying to right himself but he had nothing to brace against and all he was succeeding in doing was miring himself deeper into the sand. He couldn’t even get a good rocking motion going to roll over.
That turtle was going to be stuck there, upside down forever, unless someone flipped him over.
I hit my turn signal, eased off the pavement and stopped.
I’d had no prior dealings with big turtles. Well, except for the time one dug under the fence and made a hole about three feet deep in the front yard…but, that’s another story for another time, perhaps.
So… I got out of the car and walked slowly toward the panicky reptilian critter… while keeping alert for snakes.
I hate snakes.
The turtle’s head was pointed toward the edge of the road, so I’m thinking that I should spin him around before I roll him over so he doesn’t trot onto the asphalt and get splattered by the traffic zipping by at 60 mph.
That would suck. Especially for him.
How did I know the turtle was a him?
I was about six feet away when I saw his head and all four feet disappear……ssshhhhwoooooppp.
Sucked ’em right into his shell. Gone.
And then, I saw it.
His skinny, pink penis was protruding from, well, where most pink penises are expected to be protruding from. (Looka dat. Did I manage to get a dangling participle and a preposition on the end of that sentence? Whatever. Could it be I just invented the ‘dangling penis-ciple’ ?)
Now I am in a bit of a conundrum you see, because I have nothing to touch him with. How am I going to move him?
I’m not going to put my foot where his head can pop out and clamp on my toe. That leaves the other end.
The dangling penis-ciple end.
OK, I think to myself, do it quickly.
Boomp! Spin. Dammit. Not enough.
Again. Boomp! Spin. Success!
Only now, the little pink penis is flapping back and forth like a metronome. Flap Flap Flap Flap.
The bugger is waving at me.
I put my foot on the side of his shell and push to get him rocking a bit. He’s surprisingly heavy.
Rock Rock Rock, Push! Foomppp. It’s done. Yay.
He just lays there on his belly. No head, no legs.
I wait.
I back up.
I back up farther.
Finally, the head and appendages begin to protrude.
He stands up, looks around a bit, and I cannot help but notice… the penis-ciple is still dangling.
Dragging in the sand. He stops.
He stretches his hind legs to raise his back end and the skinny pink penis slowwwwwwwly returns to its hiding place. Then he ambles so very casually toward the ditch.
That’s it, fella. You are on your own.
I get back in my car and make my way to the art show.
It was a great art show.
Not one penis on display, however.
Since about 1990, starting in FL, I have saved an est. 300 turtles that I’ve seen on the road. Once, I had 2 box turtles walking around in the cab of my truck and about a 30lb snapper in the bed. I usually bring them back here to the compound and let em go down by the stream in the woods.
The neighbor across the road has a large pond with snappers in it and a couple years ago a female turtle came over to our front yard looking for a place to lay her eggs. She spent several hours canvassing various places to drop the load and none seemed just right. She’d stop, start to dig in then sit there for a spell. Something wasn’t right….so she’d move to another part of the yard. She even dug a few places in the gravel driveway.
Finally she found a place and set about digging for an hour, then another 2 hours to drop about 80 eggs and then cover them up. I escorted her back across the road to the pond so that a vehicle wouldn’t run over her. We watched the egg mound for weeks waiting for them to hatch. The big day came and they had all just disappeared, I guess to the pond across the road. We never seen any of them. All we seen was the ground all dug up and a lot of empty shells.
The smallest turtle I ever caught was about the size of a quarter and I found it right here in our driveway in Nov. It was very young and that was too late in the year for it to be hibernating so I brought it into my office and made a place for it to stay. I gave it turtle food, and fruits and water and let it go in the spring, down by the stream.
Male turtles have a convex (or is it concave?, I get them confused) bottom shell. On level ground the shell curves upward. Supposedly to facilitate mating.
Pik: Makin Bacon
Concave.
you’re a kind person, GS.
I try!
It helps to be around kind things.
Thanks, Ghost. Enjoyed the read.
I’ve rescued a few turtles, the most challenging being a medium sized snapper which kept trying to chomp on my hand and scratch me with its claws, but not near the number you’ve rescued Ghostsniper. Here’s a couple turtle photos. A small snapper, bout the size of a 50 cent piece, I saw floating downstream while flyfishing, and a confused turtle which kept trying to dig a hole and lay eggs in my trout camp firepit. I finally had to drive that turtle to another locale because each time I had moved it up or downstream, a couple of hours later I’d find it in the firepit again.
Guess I can only post one pic per comment. Here’s the baby snapper pic.
Look at that little scudder! About the size of the little one I found in the driveway.
FAFO
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Must see, you won’t regret it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZj5XmGeEko&t=10s
Well done AI.