Notes from the Hollow

It's the time of the year for terrapins (or three-toed box turtles) to be active. This one was found crawling along our driveway. Interesting to note that three-toed box turtles often have four toes. A scientific study of box turtles in Missouri utilized Laborador retrievers to locate turtles buried in the leaves. Over 3,000 box turtles were collected this way.

The bottom shell (or plastron) of this box turtle had evidently been severly cracked, but grew back together. Box turtles are pretty tough - they have been known to live 70 years.

This morning at two a.m., the dogs started barking to beat the band (as my grandpa used to say.) This is not an unusual occurrence – except they carried on a long time. I finally got up and found a flashlight that worked and went outside. Our two dogs and the neighbor’s dog were all climbing on top of the woodpile, trying to dig out the sticks of firewood. I investigated and could hear growling deep down in the woodpile. At first I thought it might be a cat, but with further investigation was able to spot the creature through spaces in the wood. All I could see at first was that it had a white face and black eyes. When I saw its pointy face I knew right off it was an opossum. I finally returned to bed, knowing if I dug it out the dogs would kill it. Soon after, the dogs gave up on it and went back to bed themselves.

A good website to keep track of what you are reading is www.goodreads.com. I use it to track down good books to read. If you are ever curious what I am reading, go to:

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/504343

Choose the "my books" tab up above and it will give you a list of what I have read in the past year.