The Prodigal Turtle

You may or may not know that the oldest recieved a tortoise for his 7th birthday. He named his little russian tortoise "Tuck" after a turtle on a kids TV show.

Anyway, we took good care of our little tortoise, making sure to feed him daily and give him plenty of water. We kept a heat lamp over his terrarium so he would stay warm during the cold winter nights. Every once in a while we'd take him outside to stretch his legs and get some exercise.

One of these workouts ended sadly with the children forgetting that he was out back, and they came in without him. 30-45 min later I asked where he was and neither of the boys knew. It was very frustrating not only because this pet came with a $90 price tag, but because he was really more a family pet.

*Edited. I forgot to mention earlier that the losing of Tuck and the finding happened 3 months from each other, and that he had apparently stayed in the backyard that entire time.

Today, the boys and I were out front playing "throw a tennis ball against the garage door" and Meg came out front.

"You'll never guess what I found outback," she said as she pulled Tuck from behind her back. She explained that she had heard some scraping on the back wall, gone outside and he was between the fireplace and the sun room's outer wall. We were very glad that he was back. He'd gone for months and we'd all just figured he was gone for good, but it turns out he never even left the back yard.

When I thought about it I realized that there were vegetables in the garden that had obviously be gnawed at, but I always assumed it was an opossum or worms eating them away. Now I realize that we were keeping Tuck fed without even realizing it. Thank goodness for the garden.