Losing Scutes

I lost my first scute! It’s kind of like losing your first tooth, or shedding your first layer of skin. Although, I am unsure how well you may relate to the latter. Speaking of however, I am shedding my skin too. While that is not nearly as fun to speak of, it deserves mentioning… Because, all of this means I am growing up! Yay! My mother seems to think that I have outgrown the life stages which are most sensitive to my health, as a young hatchling. There should not be much worry going forward for her because I am a healthy and happy turtle. Anyway, back to the topic of my scutes. This is important. Really important. If you’ll remember my mentioning so before, scutes are sort of like the bark on a tree. Each year, I will grow larger and my scutes will fall off. It is currently assumed (without further research) that by the time I lose the last of this current layer of scutes, I will be approximately one year old. And so it will be so forth in each coming year as I grow older. The presumably inaccurate nature of this statement is only due to inadequate findings in research done thus far. It is in fact true that turtles will lose their scutes and thus the turtle has grown a year older. However, it is not necessarily true that should one find a turtle in the wild, to count the rings of the shell will not surely indicate the age of the reptile. In captivity, this is all a bit easier to monitor. Obviously, I am not yet a year old and I have lost my first scute. I will assume that I will lose the rest of this youngling skin by the time I do turn one year old, whereupon a ring will appear within each scute, indicating that I am approximately of the age as would be figured. Nonetheless, this is all such a very big deal. More so to my mother than for me. For me, its like shedding skin. Which is exactly what its like for you, shedding skin that is. You do it every day and you don’t even really know it and if you do, you shouldn’t really care too much. My mother on the other hand takes it with a more celebratory notion. All I wanna know is if there is a Scute Fairy. I hope she doesn’t leave me money though - I wouldn’t have any use for it. I want some mealwoms!

Cold Water

It’s starting to get cold outside. It’s starting to get cold in here! Winter is in the air, and the water. Literally. I’m cold. And it’s not because I’m cold blooded either. I’m cold, because my H20 is only 74 degrees. 78-82 would be more like it! Someone kick the heat on up in here! My pond will not generally become this detrimental to my health and so there is no real reason for concern. This inclemental element is merely a temporary hurdle for my human. She will install a new heater as soon as it arrives. She takes good care of me. Its raining again. I know this because I never go outside when it’s raining. It rains a lot here. It stays cold when it rains. Must be a sign of winter. Herein lies my wonder. If it IS winter, why am I not hibernating? Late at night I can hear the waves crashing on the shores and the sea lions crying out. I wonder if they are real cold like me - out there in the ocean. If they do not hibernate, maybe, neither do I? So, I did some research… okay, my human did the research, but only because I cannot read yet, I’m still a baby, remember. Besides, my instincts are transversal. I can hibernate in the wild, or not - where I’m from, it’s not likely necessary but for a few weeks anyway, if at all. In captivity, I am not going to hibernate because my human does not want me to. And that is that. I don’t really need the hibernation ritual unless it’s really cold (outside). The heater should be here next week sometime and I’ll be a happy turtle when the water warms up. In the meantime, I’ll just bask upon my rock to keep warm - we all know how much fun that is for me.

Surviving the Real World

Blood runs thicker than water. That’s what ‘they’ say anyway. Who are these [people] to say things like that? As my human mother cares for me, the water runs clear, and clean, and fresh, and I am happy to survive in this creative environment; without all the gooey cells and mucous and platelets. This brings to note that water should not run thick in the first place! Maybe it does somewhere’s, but alas, my human and I, we live in a land of fantasy and delusion. She, the writer, me, the spoiled little cold blooded reptile. I am daily catered to with otherwise nothing but time on my flippers for deep water explorations and surface observances. Not to mention the glorious times of day whence upon I may take to basking. It is surely a delightful part of my existence. Now, mind you, all these wonderful things about my life shan’t make it a fairytale….. Actually, what am I saying? I don’t live in the real world. I live in a world created for me. Remember, where the water runs clean and clear. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ‘Tis funny how the world is, where some animals such as myself will not care for their young beyond an age. From embryos in a sac to toddlers. Yet, this human will care for my own self (as well as she does for other non-germanes) for decades. --- My mother human went away for several days. There was another human that cared for me while my mother was gone. He did a fine job, but I sure did miss my mother. She has a special way of loving me in that I would hate to live alone in the real world where my blood mother just laid my egg and walked away. So, I’m glad my human mother is back home to care for me. If blood runs thicker than water… well, I think it’s safe to say that whatever ‘they’ say is not always 100 percent statistically accurate.

Charlotte Hunts

I get tired of these little guppies trying to eat food directly out of my mouth sometimes. Every once in a time I will snap at them, and one of these days, if they’re not so lucky, I’m gonna snap one of them in half. I have hunted before. I am kind of lazy when it comes to eating these live fish because my human feeds me shrimp and krill and other turtle food every day. I don’t much get too hungry for these little pesky brats. They do help keep the tank clean, eating the little scraps that I will not digest. At the end of the feeding time I’ll spit some of my pellets out because I am so full. They like that. Haha - lucky little guppies. There is one left over from the original three that appeared in my small tank while I was only a few, small months old. Then there were three more - and now there are only two. So that equals three. Does this math make sense to you? Is this what common core looks like? The mother human has tried feeding me strawberries and bananas and lettuce. All of which I am mostly uninterested. The pellets are full of nutrients and vitamins to help me grow and the shrimp and krill are just like candy to a baby. My candy, because I am a baby. It will be neat to grow old enough to eat real big fish. In the wild, I would be hunting already. Although, there would also be things hunting me. I’m so glad I have this little habitat that my human built for me. She added flowers the other day and I’ll get a fresh, clean tank this weekend. That’s always exciting because new guppies arrive! Yum Yum.