u/Mizzkyttie

Just hanging out on the back patio while I'm out here embroidering.

He loves going out into the sunshine so much:

(Face obscured because I don't post my grandson online.)

Gar is still just a baby, and is likely to long outlive me. As much as I hate to think of it, someday, he's gonna need a new caretaker. That's where this little guy comes in - my grandson is seven and a half, (the half is VERY important, he says,) and already, if you ask him about his Lola's turtle, he'll tell you proudly that he's learning to take care of "his little buddy" because Gar will be coming to live with him someday after they're both all grown up. He's still not allowed to hold Gar, not because I'm afraid Gar can hurt him (little dude couldn't even break skin on a person yet,) but because my grandson's hands are still too small for Gar to feel secure in them. But he IS allowed to stroke Gar's shell and the top of his head when Gar indicates he wants a head rub, and he loves learning about how to take care of the tank, and loves to sit with me just observing the guppies and Gar and learning about their behavior and stuff. Makes me so happy, knowing that Gar will have such a loving and knowledgeable friend to care for him one day when I'm gone!

I was climbing trees as always, and I started watching frogs in the stream out back and then I saw a suspiciously turtle shaped head and I was like oh heck yeah baby snapper so I yoinked him and took some pics and put him back. What a cutey I love snappers

Does anyone know what is this intestines ??? What can I do to fix this 🤕😤😤😭😭😭😭

Last night vs his first day (first three photos of him tiny,) vs his first month (last photo) size comparison photos:

I swear, the bigger he's gotten, the more cuddly he is. He's too big to fit comfortably in the palm of my hand now and feel as secure as he would like, so his new preference for snuggle time is to be held with my left hand under his belly, heel of my hand under his butt, his head resting on my fingertips like a little chin pillow, with my right hand crossed around the front of his body so that my right thumb can rub one side of his shell, my left thumb can rub the other side of his shell at the same time, and he can have all of his under-meat pressed up flat against my palm with his little legs hugging me around my hand. It's been a colder spring than I would like this past month, so I've only been able to get him outside about twice yet, but we've got 3 or 4 days of sunny weather coming that's going to be in the 70 to 80°f range, so I'm excited to get him in the grass for that.

Turtle butt.

I was just hanging out by the river near my place and this cool lil fella just swam up to me, looked at me a bit, then settled down about a foot and a half away from me, hanging out watching the water go by together for about forty-five minutes before I had to get up and head on out. Good hanging out, lil buddy!

Gar is getting so broad! Baby can barely fit in my hand anymore😭💖

I have a cat with some special dietary needs, and I get my food for her at a local pet shop that's got a big variety of small batch, limited ingredient type bougie pet foods. Whenever I go in to pick up more of her meals to help control her diabetes, I also take a look at the clearance dog treat rack because there's frequently at least one packet of some kind of limited ingredient or single ingredient dog treat that will act as a fun dietary variety enhancer for Gar.

He's got his baked beef collagen and cod skin protein puffs that he absolutely loves, but I also wanted to get him something that was more meaty, less of a collagen supplement and more of a meal. And I found this set of breeze dried chicken hearts for like, seven bucks, about 3.5 oz in the sack and y'all, he absolutely loves these things. I grew up with a dad who was born during World War II, whose parents both survived the Great Depression, who managed to retain an odd fondness for the occasional bit of deep fried organ meats all the way until the day he died, so I've always known that chicken hearts and gizzards are packed with a ton of iron, phosphorus, zinc, b vitamins, super protein dense and almost completely lean. And, given that each heart is roughly about the size of his head and has a tough texture that gives him plenty to work on and wrestle with, they make a nice bit of exercise and enrichment along with his meal!

I'm still making sure to give him his turtle pellets, as well, just to make sure that I'm not missing any trace nutrients and I'm fully supporting his growth, as he is going to be 2 years old later this year, and I swear he's getting wider every day Well managing to maintain a healthy body weight and not get too thick too quickly. I'm really pleased at how nice and broad and platter like his Shell has been growing thus far, no signs of doming or pyramiding as far as I can see, and nice and thick with these lovely striation patterns on each scute that look almost like skeleton handprints, one per each segment of shell.

Speaking of feeding, he has gotten so good at aiming his bite and calculating just how much force he wants to use before striking. I've seen him pluck little tiny bits of floating chicken heart fragment off the top of the water almost like a person plucking a green of rice out of a bowl of soup with their chopsticks, and I've seen him make successful and unsuccessful surprise strikes on guppies on occasion.

And recently, he was on the far side of his basking cube, and what I consider his deep corner where he likes to hang out from time to time, sticking his head up like a telescope and observing either the TV or the room around him. And he had been acting all frisky and active that day, so I figured he must be feeling pretty hungry and I pulled out a chicken heart for him to try - the first one I'd ever given him. He caught sight of that thing in my fingers, and slowly and deliberately crawled up onto his basking spot and reached his head up towards me with this most expectant look on his face, so I brought the heart down in front of him and he absolutely gently, delicately, so politely took it from me from the very farthest tip of the heart as he could, before slipping into the water to wrestle with it. After he was finished, he came clamoring back to the side of his tank to ask for after dinner cuddles, and I couldn't possibly be more delighted!