Wild Animal Park

Our yard is a wild animal park. I went outside with dad last Saturday and was running around in my standard high-energy way. Suddenly I rounded the corner of the house and found this turtle in the grass!

I bolted back to tell dad. I'm not sure he believed me, though. He took his time coming over to the front yard as I quickly collected my gloves, my bucket, and opened the door to the house to yell at mom telling her to come quick and bring the camera.

But I was right. There was a turtle visiting us! Dad decided he must have come from the retention pond and become lost. We offered him to a neighbor who has a small decorative pond in his yard but he turned us down, so after a lengthy play-time, we brought him back to the pond.

At first we set him down about 10 yards away from the water but dad decided the weeds looked free of poison ivy so we brought him down right next to the water's edge. We briefly discussed the size of the pond and some lilies growing on the other side and looked back down to say good-bye to the turtle. He had disappeared!

Mom said that I was a very good zookeeper. She said she could tell because obviously the turtle was very happy that I brought him back home.