A true story: Our very talented new pet

            Early last summer, I received a very unusual e-mail.  It came from a turtle and contained a request to stay with my family for a while.  According to the e-mail, some friends of ours were getting all new flooring in their house and their beloved pet, a western ornate box turtle, shared that she was concerned about being in the midst of the mess.  She wanted a nice clean place to stay, far away from the chaos of remodeling.  She claimed she had heard that our family was nice, and that we had a bunch of energetic but lovable children.  The turtle wrote that she loved energetic children and wonder if we’d be willing to take her in while the changes were made at her house.   

After getting over the initial shock of opening my inbox and finding the unexpected correspondence of a reptile awaiting my response, we agreed to take her in.  Imelda the box turtle arrived with all her worldly possessions in tow- a plastic Rubbermaid “house”, a UVB light, a few dishes, some bottled water, and a baggie of “monkey bread” to eat.    She was a lovely houseguest but after the repairs were done at her house, she left us returning to her familiar surroundings.

After Imelda’s visit last summer, the death of our own pet turtles a few years ago, and the opportunity to adopt a friend’s iguana just a few months ago, we decided to look into getting another pet.  We visited local pet shops a few times but had no luck finding the perfect pet.  Then word of our desires got back to our friends-- the ones who replaced all their flooring last year, the ones with the adorable and talented pet turtle who helped convince us that we wanted a pet to begin with.  Ironically, they were thinking about finding a new home for Imelda because their youngest child just graduated from high school and would be leaving for college in the fall.  

So earlier this week, Imelda the western ornate box turtle came back- this time to stay.  She has settled into her new home quite nicely.  And, the kids are having lots of fun with her.   She has not yet asked to borrow our computer, but if she does- I might just ask her to write a guest post for my blog......