The other morning my little granddaughter became acquainted with a box turtle. It was passing by and decided to stop on her patio and visit. Seeing a photo of it brought back memories of our youngest son and his turtles.
AJ was 6 years old when we arrived in Georgia. We bought an old fixer-upper (it may be compulsive or a form of self-t
orture). At any rate it was an old farm house and we managed to get 5.5 acres with it. It was about 3 miles from a small town in the North Georgia mountains. A great place to raise children with lots of space for them to roam.
We had cats, dogs and horses for a very brief time. And in no time at all our youngest child had an assortment of turtles. He started out with one that he found somewhere in the yard. It was little and cute and fit nicely in a shoe box. He named it Jack. Jack stayed in that confined space for awhile and then he found another little turtle. That gave him the idea to create a space for both turtles outside in a more natural setting. He worked hard at getting a nice place for them to live in. It was under the old apple tree in the back yard with enough grass, dirt, and roots for his turtle buddies to hang out in. The problem was confining the little creatures. It wasn’t like they were looking for a place to rent. He’d put them in his turtle resort and the next day chances are one or both would be gone. Fortunately it’s true that turtles don’t travel very fast so he would round up his guests and start all over again. As you can imagine this became a frustrating way to have pet turtles. But he still enjoyed them and lots of little turtles came by to visit. One day he came up with what I think was a brilliant idea.
He decided that every turtle that came to visit he would name ‘Jack’. And he wouldn’t try to confine them. He figured out you really couldn’t do that if you wanted them to live naturally. The first year we lived in that house the majority of the turtles seemed to be all very small box turtles. I don’t know if those turtles simply grew up or future little ones found another path but it was mostly bigger ones that came by to visit as the years passed.
Since each turtle that found it’s way to our place was given the same name, our son wanted a way to keep track of them. To help, his dad gave him a material that is used to mark metal in fabrication. AJ would number each Jack that passed through. Number one came by when he was just over 6 years old. There were well over 20 Jacks proudly carrying a number on their shells by the time AJ found other interests. Because he had marked them he realized that some of the same turtles come to visit him several times.
Every time I see one I wonder if it has a number on it and thanks to AJ I’ve come to call any box turtle Jack.
And now our granddaughter is entertaining her own turtle visitor. Who knows maybe this is just the beginning of a long friendship with the little critters.