Monday as we sat down to breakfast, my wife noticed a guy putting something on the parking strip in front of our house. I stepped out to see what he was doing, which turned out to be moving a box turtle off of the heavily traveled street. The turtle had been close to our side of the road, so he moved it along. Box turtles have five sub-species; at first this one looked to be a Gulf Coast one, strange as that may sound here in North Carolina, but I found photos of the Eastern which resemble this one. Apparently the shell wears as they age, and the shells will become the lighter, golden color seen in the pattern on the shell above. They fairly easily live to be 100 years of age.
Wondering “why the heck is a turtle up here about a full block and uphill from where there’s a creek?”, I learned something. Box turtles hang out in moist forests and wet meadows/pastures. I would like to think transforming our front yard from grass to a meadow facilitated this little visitor, but who knows? I do wish, however, I had just watched him/her from afar because I went back out five to six minutes later, and it had disappeared. I searched diligently around our front yard, near parked cars, even back on the other side of the street, but nope–gone. I worried. Drivers looking for a short-cut found our supposedly residential street a few years ago which makes it highly hazardous to slow-moving turtles. Heck, it’s become highly hazardous to humans. Despite a posted speed of 25 mph and that it’s only three blocks long, cars routinely hit 45 mph. I hope the turtle likes our yard and decides ranging from there to the drainage swale behind our property will be its new home. It’s safer and nicer.
Our new front yard at slightly over six months of age. This photo taken the final Monday of April 2025. Many of the taller red-brown plants in the middle (foxglove beardtongue) have since flowered. The purple ones are rose mock vervain.
Sometimes I feel like a baby spider floating through the air on my gossamer web-string, wondering when this little journey will end, where it will deposit me, and in general, what does the near future hold. I’m in one of those in-between times right now. I would like to tie this up neatly by saying, “Well! I’m approaching my 70th birthday this weekend, and that explains it! Ipso facto, easy-peasy, make no buts about it.” It’s not so. I’ve never lost the summer vacation feeling we all used to get at the end of May as we eagerly anticipated the end of another school year and the beginning of a responsibility-less (or less responsibility) summer. I had barely joined the workforce at the beginning of 1978 then I returned to college in September 1981. From then until 1992 I taught in public schools–summers off! After taking a year off, working the summer of 1993 started my final move, this time to a permanent career in pharmaceutical manufacturing. But…my antsy ways caused me to move cross-country in May 1997, and we moved to a new house in May of 1998, and we moved to New York in May 2001. In May 2003 my job situation changed markedly and by August I started looking for something new. Cutting to the chase: I started many of my dozen or so consultant contracts in May, plus or minus a month. Then there’s our society’s natural predilection to mark the end of May as summer, and the end of our church choir season, and the beginning of really warm weather, and the fact I’ve always loved warm weather, and…and….and…it all seems tied up with my birthday in the beginning of June.
Turtle cannibalism
My wife and I came across an odd sight this morning. The photo below, though taken in poor lighting and into murky water, shows a snapping turtle feeding on something.
Snapping turtle eating….a turtle? Lake Lynn, Raleigh, NC. June 2024.
I’m pretty sure that’s a snapping turtle. I estimated the shell at around 15 inches lengthwise, maybe 18. Snappers average 10-18 inches, so that’s the right ballpark. It took awhile to make out what was going on until I realized it was feeding, and the object of its meal-affection appeared to be an upside down turtle of pretty good size itself. They are omnivores and eat carrion.
Other sights during our walk around Lake Lynn:
One of two geese of this species we see frequently. This one stands one-legged up the slope from the lake near an apartment in the many buildings which ring the lake. Lake Lynn, Raleigh, NC. June 2024.The Lake Lynn southern parking lot has a small butterfly/pollinator bed including these Bachelor Buttons. Lake Lynn, Raleigh, NC. June 2024.In the butterfly/pollinator garden Black-eyed Susans predominate. Lake Lynn, Raleigh, NC. June 2024.
Coming home we remarked that our own surprising volunteer Black-eyed Susan plants were starting to look pretty good:
Or maybe this isn’t a Black-eyed Susan…or the others aren’t? June 2024.
Our hydrangea plant continues to weird us out by changing color just a bit every year, getting more and more pink:
Pretty sure I shared one like this last year. The blue stamen/pistils are really something. June 2024.
And this year the main hydrangea bush’s outlier, a new plant coming up beside it and presumably from the same root system, shows a new color scheme altogether, seeming to lean in to the color scheme of its parent:
New hydrangea. June 2024.
What I’m brooding on…
These lyrics by John Prine in “Hello In There” haunted me in the 1970s and do so more the older I get. “Happy” Monday to you all.
"Hello In There"
We had an apartment in the city, Me and Loretta liked living there. Well, it's been years since the kids had grown, A life of their own left us alone. John and Linda live in Omaha, And Joe is somewhere on the road. We lost Davy in the Korean war, And I still don't know what for, Don't matter anymore.
You know that old trees just grow stronger, And old rivers grow wilder every day. Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there. Hello."
Me and Loretta, we don't talk much more, She sits and stares through the back door screen. And all the news just repeat itself Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen. Someday I'll go and call up Rudy, We worked together at the factory. But what could I say if he asks "What's new?" "Nothing, what's with you? Nothing much to do."
You know that old trees just grow stronger, And old rivers grow wilder every day. Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there. Hello."
So if you're walking down the street sometime And spot some hollow ancient eyes, Please don't just pass 'em by and stare As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there. Hello."
Yep, all that celebrating is catching up with me. So many more days to go! If one simply must attend to a few bills (as I did today), at least having a good soundtrack will help. Today we had The Night The Guitars Came To Play by Micky Moody and Bernie Marsden.
all the voices in my head 