Turtles!

Today, at the kids' soccer games, one of the girls came up to me and said, "Wanna see our turtles?" She had one of those padded cooler bags and I thought "odd," but OK, "Sure!" I said. "Let's see the turtles."

She set the bag down and opened it up. Along with a pile of orange wedges and a few bottles of water were tiny, half-dollar sized little turtles. There must have been around a half dozen and one of the girls picked one up. "They're snapping turtles!" she excaimed with glee. "They were all over the field. We kept these ones... We're going to put them in our pond," she said.

"Yikes!" My mind instantly flashed back to the Mill Pond and all the white-whale adventures we had floating around on that murky pool. I don't remember our monsters there as cute as these little hatchlings. (The movie, "Gremlins" comes to mind) Soccer saved the day for these guys, and surely an opportunistic gull missed out on a quick and easy breakfast.

And, it wasn't only snapping turtles that caught a break today. When I was buying Milk at Cumberland Farms today (only because they charge an average dollar less than the grocery store charges), a Chatham nartural resources officer pulled up, and he had an endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtle in the car. They wash up on the beach this time of year, and usually in bad weather. They are cold stunned and lost on their migration back to the south.

No Oystering tomorrow. The town postponed the harvest until next week due to the extreme weather. (Noreaster blowing since Thursday)