Tortoise Town

With the addition of Genuine Drexel and the formation of our Tortoise Creep, things were getting a little crowded for our two growing dudes, or gals, or dude and gal (Hermann's Tortoises are not easy to sex, especially ones so young).  I used Margaret's impending birthday as an excuse to spend money on lumber and tools and build her a tortoise table (we all know I did it for the Torts but Margaret likes it too). Here is the process:

 4' x 4' box

 A "small" hide box

Non-toxic water proofing rubber (Thanks Flex-seal [as seen on tv])

Access doors attached

In its final location and with legs attached

 With substrate, decorations, and torts in:

Final trimmings:  Brackets to hold the doors when opened, my idea, patent pending.

 Interior UVB lighting with holes for the cords to exit.

Two UVB lights and 1 infrared basking lamp.  (That's right! We got lights falling off both ends of the spectrum! Dont be jealous of our tortoises sweet digs.)

 Here it is all opened up!

I know that was a lot of pictures of a wooden box, but I am a very proud man.

Here is GB practicing to be the world turtle.  His head often emerges half an hour before the rest of him so he can get a good look around and see if anyone has brought him plantains or dandelions yet.

The inspirational poster on GBs wall:

They also have an outdoor enclosure now.  Who knew tortoises would (and enjoy?) climbing vertical pieces of wood?

"Sharing" a strawberry top

Me: What sound does a tortoise make?

Edie: Yomp! Yomp!

Summer fun!

Everyone helped plant seeds in the new garden bed, so we also have an auxiliary vegetable garden in the sidewalk cracks.

Boy scout...up to no good!

OMZ what could be better than chilling in the pool!?!

That's right, Edie's holding a bucket o' torts. We now have a creep of tortoises, and Eric has been working hard making them happy. The paler one is our old friend, Golden Beans Skates, and the darker one is the newcomer: Genuine ("jen-you-wine") Drexel. 

And here she is, happily watching them catch some rays themselves. Can you spot them both?

Oscar and I walked over to the library to pick up our box of books about turtles and pandas, and a deer was wandering through the parking lot! Deer can't read, silly!

I made a fancy salad for the solstice. Everyone ate it all = big success!

Edie now thinks she is the master of the hose, and if you try to water instead of her, well, you're in for a world of screams. She likes to change the water setting to "jet" or "clean" so there's often a lot of yelling by all parties. It's better to water once she's asleep...

Building the first picnic table.

The brickworks. Oscar and Eric watched some Primitive Technology videos and were inspired. Their goal: 200 bricks. They've already improved their technique from these first bricks by adding some ash from our ash stash.

Edie supervised from a safe distance. So far there's only been one invasion of mud monsters after brick-making, but you never know when they might return - or if the invasion will spread!!!

Yes there's half a watermelon rind floating in the pool. I made watermelon balls and served them inside the rind. I told the children that I smacked the watermelon very hard in a special way and Bam! the insides got turned into balls. They liked this story, so the leftover rind has been floating around to remind them of my powers.

A special package of dress-up clothes arrived from Baba Yaga, and John immediately became a ninja superhero, while Edie is a princess.

After grilling some veggies one night we toasted some marshmallows. John likes his black, of course, and Edie likes hers melty and falling off the stick, and refuses to eat any of it because it's too hot, and then crying when it falls on the ground. She's got a whole routine. Oscar made a very nice one and was so excited to show it to me that he waved the stick around in the air and wheee! another marshmallow down. Good thing marshmallows are sold in large bags. Then we put some bricks on the coals overnight to dry them extra-fast.

Daredevil.

Family Bike Patrol

With John and Oscar fully mobile with their new bike power-ups, we can now begin exploring parks and trails further from our house (with Edie in the chariot of course). Here was our first attempt at such an outing.  We had to cross our local highway (Saginaw), which is at Oscar's school.  There is a metal sky bridge there that we can take!  I was not able to get any photos of the bridge but the boys had a great time looking down at the cars going 50 far below.  I thought it was less fun having to navigate the Tandem + chariot around the bridge's tight switchbacks, but it fit. We ended at a park in our neighboring neighborhood (I think it's called Whitehills maybe?) and had a really nice photoshoot of everyone with their sweet hogs or are they steeds?)

We thought that this was a path through the woods, instead my left foot discovered it was a muddy bog...

OSCAR! JUST TAKE A NORMAL PICTURE, YOU CREENDA!

And a photobomb.... You will notice she disappeared during one of the shots above... Very sneaky.

I think that's a smile? At least he's trying!

Now John knows how to pose!  I believe he was singing a power metal solo to himself while air-guitaring in this photo.

Edie took John's example and did her best rock-star poses in front of her hot ride.

Oscar might be better behind the camera then in front! He got these great pics for us.

And John got this one... While Edie found an ant.

As Edie would say: "My boys."  

It's better not to disturb them, they are conspiring something fierce.