He's Back

Isaiah has been waiting rather anxiously for the return of a fun friend...and yesterday we spotted him. "Twisty" the turtle emerged from wherever he had been hiding this winter and early spring. We met him last year - a box turtle that has made our backyard part of his territory. We enjoyed seeing him off and on all last spring and summer and would greet him with strawberries and tomatoes and I may have been imagining things but it seemed to me that this turtle knew that if he came to our back patio he would be greeted with food...maybe.

Here is a picture of Huston and Avery last year, feeding Twisty his treat.

Not only did Twisty return yesterday, but he was seen with a friend. Isaiah thinks this friend was a different turtle that came by last summer that he named "Boxy" - I am not so certain, I think this a totally new turtle neighbor, but anyway they are calling him Boxy none the less. Now the interesting thing is that Twisty and Boxy were quite chummy...they were following each other and climbing over each other and it seems to me that we may just have to stop calling one of them a "he" and hopefully be searching for a turtle nest here pretty soon. I may be wrong, I am certainly no Missouri backyard wildlife expert...but one of our friends at church is in fact a Missouri Conservationist - I will have to research this possibility and pick his brain for some turtle facts.

Boxy is on the left and Twisty is on the right...

Twisty is the turtle that Avery used to spin on the patio last year, so I think he remembered Avery quite well cause he was closed up tightly while Avery was around. And you can see that Avery had no fear in greeting him.

So anyway we will keep you updated on our turtle family - Twisty was out again this morning, but no signs of Boxy - maybe "he" is the "she" - who knows? I bet our friend will.