Actually, we have two adopted tortoises. They are about two years old now and where they both could fit in the palm of our hand, only one now fits.
Squirt and Skipper are their names. We named Skipper after his apparent speed when we first adopted him, although now he’s the lazy one, spending weeks at a time underground and Squirt is the one who “runs” up to me and nibbles on my toenails when I come out.
This is probably because he’s so hungry. All our nice pretty edible flowers keep dying. There just seems to be a part of our yard – which is unfortunately their habitat – that is cursed to kill everything we plant. I’m becoming quite frustrated really.
We have Tortoise Chow that we feed them but with the high temps, we rarely see them outside their burrow. I’m starting to worry about Skipper. He’s not been seen for about a month or more! I’m assured by the tortoise people that this is normal, but I don’t like it anyhow.
With all our garden planning, we’re trying to plan their habitat too. There are a few things that both us and the tortoises eat – dandelions, hollyhocks, grapevines (they eat the leaves only). So we’re debating digging out the top foot or so of dirt and replacing it with good soil in hopes of better plantings next spring. We have to wait for the fall to do anything since they will both be in hibernation come October.
In the meantime, I’m trying to check on them daily to find a time when they come out so that I can make sure they are being fed enough. And I’m enjoying their emerging personalities, as well. They’ve mostly just ignored us for two years, but now that they are finally acknowledging our existence, it’s more fun to watch them meander across the habitat.
I'm Tara Wagner, life coach and creator of the Digging Deep process, where I coach women out of survival mode to recreate their lives and families.
