Happy Mother's Day!

I'm wishing that for my very own Tortoise Mom who went out in the rain and got soaked so I could get a giant drink of rainwater on Wednesday. Wow, I thought I'd miss out because there's no good place to collect rainwater in my little pen, so I was out of the burrow looking up in the sky, just hoping I could get a refreshing drink. Rain water is not like hose water. Nooooo, rain water is primo and we haven't had much of it in more than a year, so I was really worried that I would miss out.

But then my Tortoise Mom magically appeared to "walk" me outside the pen, where I could get a good drink of the world's best water, fresh from the sky. So I drank and drank and then I flushed my bladder twice, leaving two piles of urates (ok, I've been saving up again). And then I drank some more. It was like I just can't flush my bladder until I have the water I like to replace it. So I'm all fresh and frisky now. Oh, and when they weighed me the next day, I had lost 124 grams which accounts for about 4 ounces of urates plopped out on the patio. That's a lot for a dainty gal like me.

So I'm really grateful to my Tortoise Mom who has been walking me, weighing me, giving me favorite foods to build up my strength. She's recovering from her own surgery so really trying to help me avoid more surgery. We'll see what Dr. Johnson has to say about that.



I also want to wish Tortellini a Happy Mother's Day. She was a very good egg layer when my brother Charlie was still alive. Anyway there were never any baby tortoise hatchlings until Tortellini arrived on the scene 25 years ago. For a while there, it was like having an Easter egg hunt in our yard twice a year when a clutch of eggs would hatch. Over the years, my Tortoise Mom adopted out nearly three dozen baby tortoises through the Turtle and Tortoise Society. Now they have to do it through the program at Arizona Fish & Game. Anyway I think Tortellini deserves a celebration for all the baby tortoises she produced to make other families happy too. Happy Mother's Day!

Eat. Graze. Poop.

My tortoise mom dragged my tortoise dad to a movie, and then talked about what a tortoise version of it would be: "Eat. Graze. Poop." Yep, that's what we tortoises do. There's no mad search for anything but treats coming through the patio door, and enjoying our own backyard. And then of course, there's the end product. Ahem. We like to do that by the patio door. A lot. I guess it's just what happens while we're waiting for the "drive-up window" to open and our tortoise mom magically appears with our favorite salad for the day.

We've been really tanking up this week. When the temperature drops even a little and it feels a little stormy, we come out of the burrow earlier in the afternoon because we don't have to escape the heat like usual. So we've really been putting away the groceries. In the process, we've been hanging around the patio door a lot. Tortellini is especially good at using her shell to "knock" on it. But she's the acrobatic one. She managed to flip herself over this week from trying to climb the fence. She has always done that so my tortoise mom is always checking on us, especially when we're more active just prior to hibernation. September is a busy month for us. We don't need a calendar to tell us that Fall started yesterday.



You'll notice the my tortoise version of the movie isn't "Eat. Soak. Poop." Sorry, Dr. Johnson, I still hate soaking!!! But I'm first out when it rains, or I drink when the sprinklers fill the tree well. What can I say, I like fresh, running water. So I even sat in the lawn sprinklers to get a big drink the other day. I know I need to get big drinks to flush my bladder so I won't get another bladder stone. And I'll have my annual check-ups so if I do get one, it won't be a boulder and require major surgery and a whole year (and counting) of recovery. So, ok, I'll grit my beak and soak. If I have to. I guess.