Who needs a garden gnome...

... when you can have a garden turtle!

I came across this cutie while pulling out some sticker bushes about a week and half a go. And while it's far from uncommon to cross paths with an Eastern box turtle, after all, I've done so multiple times each year that I've lived here; but it is a little more uncommon for them to stick around one location for so long; as it's now been a week and some change, the turtle is still here.

I had made a couple of small piles of sticker bushes on the day I found it, and for reasons I now can't remember, ended up leaving said piles on the ground overnight. The next day I found that the turtle had moved into one of the piles, and there it stayed for the next 4-5 days. I forgot to get a picture of it tucked in there, but I did get this one of it looking the entrance.

The pile of sticker bushes must not have been in the right location, because it has since moved back to the are where I first found it. Seems to be a better spot for sun, and food, so I'm thinking that's what was behind the move.

Normally when I find them out and about, I do tend to pick them up to see whether they're a male or female (flat shell on bottom = female, concave = male), but I don't want to do anything that might make this one leave (i.e. insult it), so I've resisted the urge to check. It would be nice to know how to properly address it, but I'm okay just continuing to call them "sweetie" (fun fact: I call almost everything I encounter outside, "sweetie"). I do know though that it is full grown, so it's at least 6 years old.

I've also been trying to bribe them into staying by providing some food scraps, well, a couple of apple slices, and few bites of banana. Both of which seem to have gone over like gangbusters. I really hope that it does stick around for awhile, as it's been nice to have someone to talk to, but I'm prepared for whenever it needs to move on.

Kind of a short post today, so here's one more recent non-turtle picture that I took...

I was so focused on getting home this particular day that I didn't even notice this modern General Lee sitting next to me until after I had loaded some groceries and was just about to pull out of my parking space. Had I not been so focused on going home, I probably would've drove around the other side to get a shot that didn't have the cart return in the way. I prefer the original, but still found this persons "General Webb" to be mildly interesting.