Visitors

Yesterday I was going over to take our neighbor's papers to their house (they're out of town), and I happened on to this little fella (?) in our yard. I quickly called the boys out to see.

Like I needed to call them quickly. It's a turtle for heaven's sake.
I asked the boys to bring out their turtle shells to compare to what we had found. Matthew's shell - as I'm sure my devoted, loyal readers remember from March posts - is flatter and wider. Mike's is more dome-shaped and rounder. We thought that meant that Mike's turtle was a female. Today's turtle's shell looked very similar to Michael's. Female, right? Well, according to Wikipedia (look at Homegrown Sunshine's blog - not just for turtle info...she's really interesting), American Box Turtle: 90% of the time, male box turtles have red or orange irises while the female has brown or yellow ones. Also, the female has a tendency to have a higher-domed, rounder upper-shell, while the male has a lower shell with more of an oval or oblong appearance. Since the turtle we found has both red irises and a domed shell, I don't know what that means.

I'm just not getting into turtle gender issues today.

We've been eating almost every meal outside lately. The weather is so, so nice, and I know that won't last for long - 90 degree weather with HIGH humidity is on it's way. When the boys and I were eating lunch yesterday, we watched this skink (a male because of the red head according to some skink website) run around on the roof. As long as he stays outside...