Early Morning Adventure

This morning we were walking to the bus when James saw something on greenbelt. I looked over and we weren't sure what it was, until it popped its head out. It was a turtle! Considering we just finished watching several episodes of Turtle Man, this was pretty nice timing. It was just on the edge of the grass very near the road. Upon closer inspection it was a snapping turtle and a pretty big, burly one at that. It has some battle scars on the shell and although the shell wasn't huge (about 9" long?) the legs and head were ginormous!! Due to the nature of this particular beast, we just looked from a friendly distance and then started to go to the bus stop. Right at this time, one of the township maintenance men showed up and asked if there was a turtle. We told him yes, and he said he would move it to the creek. He got out, grabbed his gloves and approached the turtle. At this point I am thinking 'Dude, you look like a guy who might value his digits, and those gloves don't look like they would stand a chance against those jaws' but what I said was 'good luck!' When he came close enough to see it, he remarked 'wow, that really IS a big one' and thought better of the ol' catch 'em with your (almost) bare hands approach. He decided to get a bucket, only he didn't have a bucket. With some quick thinking, he used a large trashcan he had and coaxed it in. It did try to snap at the shovel at which point he declared 'Definitely a snapper!' which was pointing out the obvious. If you haven't seen a snapper, google it. They are kind of like freakish dinosaur turtles. At some point during this, a neighbor came down saying that this particular turtle stayed in her yard, and that it visited all the time and that HE lays eggs in my yard, and HE lays eggs in my garden every year, and bla, bla, bla. All the while, I pondered whether she realized what she was saying. Poor turtle is going to have an identity crisis. However, once dropped at the edge of the woods, SHE promptly took off at high-turtle speed to the creek. The excitement was over, we missed the bus and drove to school happy.