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Texas Gardening

A visitor out for a walk in my front yard today!

2 years ago

I was sitting in my livingroom chair, watching a classic, fav sci fi movie on TV, waiting for the grass to dry out from last nights rain. Looked out the window when his movemeny caught my eye out the window right in front of me. Never have I seen such a huge turtle in the wild. His shell was easily 10" or longer from front to back. As one would expect, he tucked his head in when I went around frontfor a closeup of his head.

Judging by the bits of vegetation debris and mud on his shell, he must have been living underneath my neighbor's border trees and shrubs. Her lawn service was weed-whacking out there for quite some time just before his appearance. Poor little guy. Hope he finds a cozy home replacement somewhere. :)

Featured Answer

roselee z8b S.W. Texas

2 years ago

last modified: 2 years ago

Cute, but looks like a water turtle from the size and shape of the shell. They sometimes wash up from a dry creek several blocks away from my place and wander around looking for water. People bring them to me knowing I have turtles. I take them to the always running Salado Creek, a tributary of the San Antonio River, that runs through Los Patios here in S.A.. (Bob and I were married there 44 years ago). It already has lots of turtles for company. They won't survive out of water very long as they eat only small fish. I hope someone finds and does the same for this little lost guy. They are first cousins of the red eared slider.

Comments (7)

memetexas
2 years ago
He's so cute!!
One Devoted Dame
2 years ago
Now how can I attract little guys like him? <3 What a treat to find a turtle in your garden. Hope he takes up residence!
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Before I'd make that ^ pronouncement, I'd question OP about what is meant by a 25 ft. limit in size. I'm about as sure as a guy at a computer at a remote location can be that what he/she means is that the yard section or whatever little plot this is is 25 ft. wide. That simply does not say anything about what tree can or can't "fit" that spot. Remember dear readers....large-growing "shade tree"-type trees, when mature, exist as a trunk somewhere out in the yard. The trunk may grow large, but no tree I'm aware of in the N. temperate zone is going to have a trunk 25 ft. wide. What is almost surely the case is that any large-growing "shade tree"-type tree could in fact easily inhabit that space...and at maturity, would consist of a trunk with all the tree up high overhead. Such trees form living ceilings over our "outdoor rooms" which is what landscaping seeks to provide. Take that same 25 ft. wide area, plant one of the ornamental, low-crowning species, and now you really have taken up all that space. Nobody can throw a ball around, nobody can even just walk there, because there's a big, wide-spreading ornamental tree crown in the way. That's the reality of this big tree/small tree conundrum-that many folks get it exactly backwards-the large-growing type-at maturity-taking up less space than the little redbud, fl. crab, or what have you. People that give out lots of landscape advice should learn to recognize this elemental fact.
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buttoni_8b
Original Author
2 years ago
I have no talent for attracting them, this turtle, nor the grey fox that trotted on this same sidewalk 3 nites in a row during our arctic freeze. They just appear and I'm in awe. Luckily, my TV viewing chair faces the window that overlooks this superhighway. LOL My husband always misses these sightings.
memetexas
2 years ago
We have had tons of possims through the years. We give them a ride to the 30ac bird sanctuary across the other side of a creek so they won't come back.

I have one larking, she thinks she lives here. A few weeks ago my dogs chased her through the yard and the next day I discovered a baby in a bush which must have fallen off during the chase. I scooped the baby and put it out in a sideyard outside of backyard fence so dogs wouldn't get him. The next morning he was back in the backyard. He was squeaking while in the bush so his mother would find him. I left him alone and the next day he was gone. Mother is showing up on my garage roof. They're cute but such a nascence

I'll save my armadillo, baby hawk and skunk stories for another time. Or the one when a rabbit was sitting next to an armadillo on my corner...LOL
wantonamara Z8 CenTex
2 years ago
I think that you and ragna can get together and have some turtle races.
buttoni_8b
Original Author
2 years ago
@memetexas, we had possums all the time at my last house some blocks away from this one. They would get up underneath the storage shed to live, occasionally coming out to taunt my two rat terriers that were small enough to get under it also. The girls never killed a possum, but did catch a couple rats under there. When I got rid of the bird feeder, the rats stopped coming around. There's a dry creekbed about 5 blocks from both houses and I've always thought that was where the rats hang out. Our neighbor brought 2 barn cats from his rural property and the rat population has gone down ever since. We even found a dead rat in my large side garden where his cats like to scale lthe fence and explore occasionally.

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