A story in two parts, part Une

[micky]

I go out of my house this morning and I don't see well without my glasses and I see a brown spot on the grass. It's a turtle!

What is a turtle doing on my yard? About an inch and a half long. I lift one side of the shell a little bit and he starts to pull his head in. So he's alive.

It's a townhouse with a little yard, and it's about 40 feet from the turtle to my fence with woods 3 feet beyond that, and another 30 feet to a stream. If it's a turlle that walks around my yard, does it like streams.

There's a teeny tiny chance that the mailman may step on him when he comes to deliver the mail. The chance will go up a lot if the turtle gets closer to the sidewalk. Should I explain that to him? Or move him to a safer place? What is safer? I'll have to mow the lawn in 2 or 3 weeks.

[micky]

I went back to discuss the problem with the turtle. He hadn't been moving at all when I first saw him, but I still thought that even at low speed, I would lose him if I didn't check every hour or so. But what actually happened is that the sun came out and he warmed up and was gone like the wind. Faster than a speeding bullet. When will I learn? I looked mostly in the direction he had been facing and couldn't find him at all.

I woinder if he escaped from a neighbor. The closest small child is 150 feet away or so.

Before I mow the lawn I'm not going to crawl across the lawn but I will walk slowly acroos the whole yard, to make sure i don't kill him.