Turtles

So here’s the deal. My life has been turned upside down, and so far, I have survived. Oh sure, it’s a bitch at times, and there are aspects of how my life was before that I wouldn’t mind having again, but all in all, it’s not as bad as I feared. I’ve set off on a different and unknown path, and I have no idea where it’s leading. And for some reason, that's okay.

We have this tank on our property in the Texas Hill Country. When it’s full, it covers about 2 acres, but it leaks. So in the summer, it drains away to almost nothing, and this last summer/winter, it dried up completely. You can tell when a tank is about to go dry, when even with all your hoping and praying, rain isn’t coming any time soon. How? The turtles.

As you can imagine, it’s not an easy thing for a turtle to relocate. The decision to do so is a serious one, fraught with peril and requiring Herculean effort. Out of the water, they are awkward and exposed, not just to predators, but to the elements, the sun, the dry air. And it’s not like they have a map, or GPS. Guided by instinct alone, they head out clawing their way over this hill or that. It’s arduous, glacially slow going. And if they’ve miscalculated, you’ll find their hollowed, dried shell in the middle of the pasture.

So if the turtles leave the pond it’s because they know there’s nothing left there for them. And if you see them leaving, you can bank on the fact that the pond will go dry, or be reduced to little more than mud.

This last year, around the end of November, as I was walking to my parent’s house, my dogs were on the road ahead of me when all of a sudden they started barking, heads down, lunging at something on the road. I knew it was too late in the season for snakes, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell what it was, until I walked closer. There, in one of the gravel ruts, were two turtles, facing up hill, facing away from the tank. The dogs were beside themselves. They had no idea what these were, or what they should be doing with them, or waht it meant that all of sudden they appeared here on this hill.

But I knew. I knew that the drought would continue and the inevitable would occur. And sure enough, by the first of January the pond was nothing but mud, and by the end of January the mud had dried and cracked.

So the turtles chose wisely. They knew they could not stay, and even though leaving meant danger and hard, slow progress, they set out into the unknown searching for something better.

I have no idea if they made it. I hope they did.

The pond is back up now, the result of a 4 inch rain a few weeks back, but so far, no turtles in sight. But they will find it again. They always do.