Today when I came home from work, there were 22 Canada geese and a great blue heron on our pond. The heron has been frequenting our place for the past week. Today he hung out at the edge of the pond along the dam while the geese surrounded him. The later I looked out and they were all on the opposite side of the pond, and Mr. Heron (or Mrs. I suppose) was right there among them. Then he took off long before they did. Yesterday evening the heron was sitting up high in a pine tree all hunched up. That was a strange sight with its light gray plumage contrasting against the dark pine needles.
The little turtle is still hanging around. Yesterday afternoon I caught him moving up the dam about 10 feet from the spillway stream I put him in. I was worried the dogs would find him, so I moved him to the upper end of the pond where the slope is gentler and the bank is softer mud. I figured he was wanting to get to the pond to possibly hibernate in the mud. But our pond level is up and he'd have about a foot drop into 6-8 inches of water where he was headed. It frosted last night or early this morning, so I was a bit worried about him as I left for school before daylight this morning. When I got home I was releived to see him in about the same spot I put him in sunning himself. This evening he was headed back into the water's edge.
I took Oscar to get nuetered this morning. Since they did laser surgery I could pick him up this evening. But we have to keep him "quiet" for a couple of days. That means figuring out a place to keep him seperate from Jasmine because they play rough. We'll work it out. BTW, both Oscar and Jasmine are on petfinders.com. If interested in seeing their pics, go to
www.hsop.org and look in "our pets".
