Animal adventures

You remember our new family member, right?  If not then look at the last post and you can read all about her.  Well in the end our little toad was named Emma.  She was a short lived pet since we turned out to be horrible bug catchers.  This evening before bed our teary four year old released Emma to the backyard after much hugging and patting.  It was sad to see her little chin quiver at the idea of releasing her little woodland friend but in the end she learned that sometimes you have to let a loved one go in order to love them the best.  Ah... life lessons.

As we came inside from the dark, cold yard my little Abby and I made plans to go toad catching tomorrow so that we won't go too long without the companion of someone from the toad family.

In other animal related news, I've been training Abby's turtle, Shelly, to eat from my hand.  It is going very well.  As soon as I begin to lift the cover from her tank she swims right over to the side (instead of trying to hide as she previously had done) and waits for me to lower my hand with the pellet in it.  Shelly and I have been enjoying this daily get together as I learn that she is more than just another animal to clean up after and she learns that I am more than just the lady who periodically evicts her from her home so that we can clean it.  Well, it was going swimmingly (pun intended) until Abby wanted to feed her turtle.  Can you see where this is going?  Surprisingly enough I didn't.  Well, I gave Abby the pellet and showed her where Shelly comes for her food.  Abby put her little fingers into the tank to feed her friend and despite the enticing treat that was between them Shelly went for the chubby little fingers that held the aforementioned treat.  And she didn't let go quickly.  Oh the screaming!  I consoled my little princess and washed her hands and then we put antibiotic ointment on it and a bandaid and she went off to bed with Daddy to watch Mr. Rogers.  Despite the trauma Miss Abby isn't upset with Shelly and she understands that she was just being a turtle.  It is a good thing that she loves animals because this was a traumatizing evening!!

                Here is the offending turtle trying to hide from me after the commotion of feeding time.

And on to our last animal story for the night (there could be more but I will spare you the details of what our rooster, Kenny, did to his hens as the kids watched) we move on to a cute anecdote about our baby chicks.  We have adult chickens that lay eggs and all that already.  They are a fairly evasive bunch and not very social when you finally do manage to catch up with them so we acquired a few little chicks to try and raise to have a more pleasant disposition.  We have one, named Cutie Pie or Tweety bird (depending on who you ask), one named Pie and two others who have been deemed Mary 1 and Mary 2 or "the twins."  These little ones hang out together and roam around the yard as a little mini flock.  They are sweet and fairly friendly and are also hated by the senior birds.  The babies are also a tasty looking snack for our dogs who seem to have a penchant for foul.  This evening as the birds were free ranging and I was cooking on the grill up on the deck, with the dogs sitting at my feet lest any food should fall, two of the babies made their way up the stairs of our deck!  It was the cutest thing!!!  Clearly they didn't smell the chicken on the grill or they would have waddled away for their lives!!!

For the life of me I can't fix the orientation of this picture so please just turn your head to the left.  :)  So you can see two of our babies and our very hungry dog, who really wanted to eat them but is afraid of getting in trouble, trying to restrain herself.  :)

Well, I am hoping that that is all of my animal adventures for tonight but really who knows.  I am going to curl up on the couch and read a book lent to me by a friend.  If I'm feeling ambitions then maybe you'll see a book review in the near future.  God bless!