The Turtle Invasion

Poor Uter, she reminds me so much of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. I mean, just look at that worried face, and this picture was taken before the other turtles arrived.

Turtles, you may or may not know have very specific environmental requirements. Obviously they need a tank, but they also need a basking rock or log and basking light, and finally they need food. They don't really need love, but they do need their owners to keep them on a schedule.

My brother, who is moving out of his apartment tomorrow, but not into the new apartment until Saturday, came over last night with his two turtles and we started a game of musical tanks. Uter has been removed from her tank, and has lost her basking bulb. Today she will have to make do with a regular 60 watt, which will give the illusion of sun, if not the benefits of an actual basking bulb. This is unfortunate but necessary, as I was afraid that putting a basking bulb in the only lamp I had left could cause a fire.

Johnny Cakes, I know he's named after some sort of food, but I don't spend enough time in the states to know what that food thing is, or if he looks like one. He has always made me think of a hamburger,or a Dagwood Sandwich. This picture isn't the best, but I can tell you that he is easily 3 times bigger than Uter. As such he had to be given the biggest tank. Poor Johnny Cakes, he's such an easy going turtle, but last night he was headed for a meltdown, too much change, and now to have to spend the day with a dog (he's not used to dogs). I started to worry so I sent Uncle Tim a text message and he told me that if Johnny Cakes doesn't settle down I should sing to him, apparently his favourite song is "Let it Be". It's funny, who knew that turtles were so sensitive.

Bender is another story. Because Bender is very close in size to Uter it was a bit of a toss up as to which one would be given the medium size tank. However, we had some set up work to do so I told Uncle Tim to put them both in the medium tank until we had the chance to get the 10 gallon set up. So he did, and luckily he was standing there fiddling with some cords because it wasn't two minutes from the time we put Bender in until she climbed on top of my poor Uter. I'm sorry, but I will not tolerate that kind of behaviour in my home...not even from turtles who can't be expected to know better. So that decided the issue, Bender, who should be named "tiger", was given the smallest tank.

Bender is by far the most adaptable of the lot. Predictably Uter started freaking out. I didn't worry too much about that since Uter freaks out about going to her feeding bucket. Johnny Cakes was freaking out as I said already, and Cadie didn't know what to make of the whole thing, she just wandered from room to room sniffing, trying to figure out what was going on. At one point she stopped in front of the big tank and seemed shocked to find there was a giant turtle in there, but then, I like to think that she recognized Johnny Cakes' distress because she turned around and came back to the living room. At the same time Bender was just hanging out on her basking log.

This morning everything is better. All the turtles are settled, though only Uter and Cadie (the dog) ate, at least I'm pretty sure that we'll be able to get by until Saturday

House Cleaning

I spent the weekend house cleaning. I am the second worse housekeeper that I know of, and the apartment was a disaster, that was sorely in need of cleaning. So I chipped away at the dusting, laundry and bathroom on Saturday and did the kitchen and floors last night. I also spent some time last night preparing for the turtle invasion that is happening later tonight.

Uncle Tim is moving, and it is going to take a couple of days for him to have his tank up and running again, so in the mean time his 2 turtles will be staying with me. So I had to go down to the storage locker, carefully bring out the spare tanks, and carefully haul them upstairs. From there I just had to clean them and fill them with water. But then I started to have some worries, what if Cadie tries to eat the new turtles, or jumps in and drowns in the tank. So that meant that I had to rearrange the furniture so that I could be sure that she would be safe. Anyhow, Tim's turtles are very pretty, so stay tuned and I will post some pictures of them.

Cadie hates cleaning, she doesn't see enough of it to really understand what's going on. All she knows is that her things are being picked up and moved around. Usually she hovers behind me or cowers on the couch. (poor Cadie, last night I took the cushions off the couch and vacuumed there as well, displacing her again). In total I would say that I spent a good 3 hours a day (6 for the whole weekend cleaning). The really heartbreaking thing is that this is just the obvious stuff like dusting and floors. I still have a mountain of bills that need to be filed, the fridge looks like a bomb has gone off, and I'd like to sort through my tea towels as well. Oh well, at least it's a start. And if I'm vigilant this time it won't ever get so dirty again. Ha! who am I kidding, I hate cleaning. What am I saying, it's not that I hate cleaning, I can't clean, it upsets the dog.

Oh the other hand, I did do some cleaning that made me feel really good. I cleaned out my facebook friends, and deleted my ex and his friends. This cleaning has made me feel really good about things.

Turtle Tales

Cadie is not my only pet. I also have a nice little turtle named Uter. Uter, according to my youngest brother, is a Mississippi Map turtle, you can read all about them here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Map_Turtle .

My brother has a lot of turtles as pets, but Uter just never fit. Apparently Uter has very serious psychological issues. My brother has I think 4 or 5, a giant one, named Johnny Cakes, and 3 or 4 other smaller, and younger ones. Uter lived with the smaller and younger ones, but he never really fit in. He would freak out frequently. And by freak out I mean that he would try to jump out of the tank, swim out of the tank, and when that didn’t work he would bite the other turtles, which meant that my brother had to find a new home for him.

Instead of posting him for sale on Craig’s List, I took ownership of poor little Uter. Since then he has grown fat, and has had to adapt to living with a dog. For the most part Cadie ignores him, and he ignores her. It’s a bigger problem when we have dog friends over, they are fascinated by this little moving thing in the corner.

It’s funny though how quickly these animals can grow on you. It’s easy to look at a dog like Cadie and fall in love. She’s fluffy, with nice soft fur, and such full cheeks, and a very sweet expression that just wins you over. Uter is the polar opposite. He’s cold and wet, and hides whenever you come in a room. He seems to hate being at my place, though that seems to have improved as we continue to build up his tank. Everything being equal, I have to tell you that I looked at little Uter tonight and discovered that I love him, you know in the appropriate owner/pet kind of way. I like to think that Uter has become, if not fond of me, than at least less scared of me. He now comes over to the side of the tank, and floats next to me while I’m putting my boots on. And he doesn’t swim so far away from me when I walk over to the tank. I think too, that he is even starting to get used to Cadie. Tonight she went looking for him. Not for long though, it still makes me nervous to see a dog hovering around his tank.