We like to sit outside not far from my backyard peach tree, and this time of year, these little almond-sized baby peaches fall off the tree like occasional, solo hailstones. Gar has decided that they remind him a lot of his freeze-dried chicken hearts, and has chosen to treat them accordingly. Homie, we all know you can't swallow out of water!
I was gone for nearly a week out in Vermont, as my daughter was giving birth to her very first baby, and I went up there to stay to babysit their dog while they were in hospital, welcome them home, and be a pair of helping hands for the first few days. My housemates watched Gar for me, and when I got back last night, it was clear he was happy I came home.
As soon as I came into the room, he damn near launched himself out the surface of his water trying to climb out to get to me, and even after I held him a few times and played with him a little, afterwards when I put him back in his tank he still kept trying to get back out and into my lap, to the point where he refused to even eat the food I put in for him and had to fish it out so it wouldn't just float there all night.
Woke up this morning and not long after I turned his lights back on for the day, he woke up from his sleep and started doing his attention dance again. This time, I gave him exactly what he wanted - I scooped him up, grabbed my book, and brought him outside.
He immediately walked about two and a half, 3 ft in front of me just out of the range of the shade and plopped down in the sun, and has been relaxing and blinking at me quite happily for the last 20 minutes just looking around and taking in the breeze and all the various sights to see.
I had a wonderful time meeting my granddaughter and getting to take an extended visit with my daughter and her partner, but goodness this little guy also reminds me why it's great to come home!
Gar is growing up to be such a brave, confident, relaxed but still stubborn little dude. He's been feeling adventurous enough to go about 6 ft away from me, 7 ft at most, lay down and relax and watch the world beyond the trees at least as far into the long distance as he can see, and then turn around and slowly make his way back towards me again, stopping to relax and do a little up Periscope action every so often here and there...
And of course, he will often try to make his way over to the Forbidden trailers if he thinks I'm going to let him get away with it. Which I never do, but it doesn't stop him from making the attempt, one of which I have thwarted just now as I'm dictating this. He's currently sitting on one of the flat wooden scrap planks I have under my scare squirrel beneath my peach tree, Periscope head looking from side to side and blinking at me dourly for being such a spoil sport. And now he's wandered over to rest between my feet before once again heading back at a vague angle towards the trailers but in such a way where it would look to the unfrained eye that he's trying for something else but I know what he's up to. He's going to start heading for the foundation of the house and then try to skirt around the corner instead of heading for the tire directly and yep... There he goes now. Caught at the corner once more, and once again I'm going to tuck him into the makeshift little cave that I made him out here of a large old pot that I turned over onto its side, so I can show him that some things are okay but the trailers are yes, Forbidden.
And now he's staring at me from his new front porch, just outside of the pot looking up at me with head fully outstretched like ma'am, what do you want me to do with this?
Look at how nice and high he can get his belly off the ground while walking these days! He is getting so strong and he loves the yard so much!
I mean, not entirely. I have been known to watch some absolute true garbage trash, which is no shock to anyone in the house because I'm basically something loosely adjacent to a cryptid. But right now he's got 8 hours of a kelp forest to enjoy, after having had a lovely hour or so to walk and explore, and two entire freeze-dried chicken hearts for a nice big meal today. No wonder why he's getting to be so wide and strong!
Here's a rough cut of about 7 minutes of what it's like to be the full-time unpaid staff of a very imperious baby snapper. If anyone's wondering, for reference for size, I wear a women's size 7 to 7 and 1/2 narrow shoe on the left, a size 7 and 1/2 to an eight regular on the right, and if anyone is curious what I put on the TV for him, it's an 8-hour bit of footage of an underwater kelp forest. His Highness is pleased. 😂
It's a cool and overcast day, and I've been doing some yard work. Decided to take a break and bring the water puppy out to catch some air and get some exercise:
This one's going to be a bit of an unusual post for me:
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When you have a snapping turtle for a pet, and you're the mom to a shitload of zoomer kids, almost all of whom are partnered in some way, most of whom have at least one child of at least 6 years or younger, and only one of your kids are biologically yours to begin with, starting a family group chat for five kids, their respective partners who wish to hang out as well, etc and having it get active... It can be pretty damn lit. And during basking season, while the kids are playing catch up, I get to blow up their phones with turtle footage. I figured I'd let y'all take a peek because this is pure gold if you ask me.
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Photos in post, related videos in the comments.
Little guy almost never uses his baking platform, but deliberately climbed over it and walked up to me to show just now much he wanted to come outside today😅
Here's a short minute of Gar, peacefully surveying some of his kingdom, just quietly splooted in the grass and content to stay right in place.... That is, until the Amazon guy showed up to deliver a package, at which point his Tiny Highness got curious and tried to catch up to him and say hello. He wasn't fast enough for the fleet-footed Amazonian, however, and only got about five feet towards the fella before the delivery driver got back to his truck and drove away. Gar sulked for a second, but then came walking back towards me and settling back down. He's such a friendly and curious little guy!
I kept telling him that the weather wasn't gonna be nice enough for him to wanna settle down and nap, but he insisted. Now he's trying to find his way back to the door home😂
I typically have a pretty easy time understanding what gar wants, but as he learns and grows and has new experiences, just like any baby, he changes day by day and it's always a matter of keeping up and deciphering what he's trying to tell me. The last week or so, ever since taking him out to his swimming pool in the photos I posted the other day, he's been asking to come out of his tank a ton but refuses to settle down, and starts trying to walk out of my hand orienting himself towards the door of my bedroom and refusing to stay still until finally he gets exasperated and starts to orient towards his tank. I've trained him so that when I'm holding him and he starts to make a walking motion, I start walking in the direction he's going so that he's sort of walking in the air and understands that he's not just trapped in my hands, but he is also docile enough with me that if I do refuse to take him where he wants to go, I can hold him gently in my hand until he smacks me with his head and turns toward his tank to go home. And that's what he's been doing, similar to the kind of restless behavior that he will exhibit when he's shedding and can't get comfortable in my hand because he's itchy, but much more... Mobile and determined.
Not only have I not been able to get him to settle down in my hand and take his customary hand naps while getting his shell rubbed, I haven't been able to take him out for the last 3 days not because of weather, but because I've been busy. So today, when I lucked out with a combination of glorious weather and a couple of free hours of spare time on my hands, when I came back downstairs from heading across town on my usual trip across town to pick my grandson up from his house and drop him off to school, and Gar came rocketing to the top of the tank in his excitement at seeing me, I decided to bring him out.
I reached to the surface of the water and plucked him out of the tank as he swam into my hand, and just like before, within seconds he started determinedly moving off my hand in the direction of the door. As soon as I started heading over the threshold to cross the room towards the stairs up and outside, he relaxed and became still. I looked down at him and asked, is this really what you wanted the whole time? And he looked up and blinked at me slowly, remaining otherwise motionless as I continued walking.
As soon as I opened the door to the backyard, he extended his head out like a little periscope and blinked languidly in the brightness of the summer afternoon, and once I placed My palm down on the grass, he moseyed off of it in absolutely no rush, settling in the grass about a foot and a half away from me. At that moment, my son came across the yard, spotting us both, and decided to sit down opposite from me, with Gar between us, and we started catching up about the day thus far. Meanwhile, my little hambaby splooted and splayed out to bask for about 15 minutes before getting up and walking towards me, stopping in the shadow of my left knee and blinking up at me. I assumed that he just wanted to cool off in the shade a little and continued talking with my son, occasionally looking down at the turtle who refused to stop staring at my face, like he was a buddy of mine across the room at crowded pub desperately trying to catch my eye contact to mime at me to ask if I needed a refill on my hard cider. I found it interesting that he wouldn't completely settle down and relax as before, and even looked down at him and said as much, and finally he blinked at me a couple more times before navigating his head towards my son and walking his way.
I have been having a conversation with the young man about snapping turtle biology, the way their eyes work with their double corneas and the special oil secretion between the lenses that helps to give them their incredible eyesight above and below water, the mechanism behind their swallowing, various tips about their body language, etc. Both he and my grandson are learning everything that I can teach them about snapping turtle care, behavior, and body language, in order for them to be proper caretakers for Gar when I am gone someday, hopefully at least another 40 years from now. But you never know so you got to be prepared. Anyway, my son looks down at Gar, who had just finished purposefully strolling towards him, then laid flat in the grass with his head down and eyes tilted up towards my son's face. My son looked down with this "awh shucks" grin on his face, and asked him, hey little buddy, are you trying to get some pets out of me?
He reached out and, gingerly at first, started stroking the back of Gar's shell, immediately upon which, Gar flattened himself even further, splaying his legs out as far as they could, his forelegs occasionally digging gently at the grass as he lay his chin down on the ground and closed both eyes. That's when I had another light bulb moment, and I told my son, "_Now_ I get it! First off, he hasn't been settling in my hand for days because he's been wanting to come outside and he's been getting cranky with me that I haven't been taking him, and once I got him out here, he wanted to take a nap while getting his shell rubbed but I wasn't getting the clue, so then he went to you to see if he could get what he wanted and you were the one that finally gave him what he's been asking for! I'm sorry, little turt, I try my best to figure out what you want, but I'm still learning your language, little buddy!😅" Gar, of course, said nothing in reply.
Eventually, my son had to get up and get on with his day, so I scooched up and took over shell rub duty and Gar, disgruntled at first at my son stopping the shell massage that he'd been waiting so patiently up get, settled back down right away and resumed napping. I was lucky to catch some photos of both my son and myself giving His Eminence his due respects, and he looked so damn cute of course I had to share.
I swear, it's really not all that dissimilar feeling to taking care of a young toddler who doesn't know how to communicate well yet, who's trying like hell to get you to understand what it is that he wants but he's at that age where it sounds about 3/4 gibberish. His patience is every bit as short; the big difference is that he's just a whole lot quieter!
Any of you folks have any similar stories about the trial and error of learning your turtle's particular way of telling you what they want? I'd love to hear them, because I'm sure I'm not alone, And I have no doubt that it's equally amusing 😅😁🐢