Yurtle the Turtle

This past week we have been baby-sitting our friend's pet turtle while they are on vacation. It is supposed to live in a small fish tank inside. We began to feel sorry for her, and started letting her out in the back yard for short amounts of time. A couple of times we lost track of her and had to make a frantic search around the yard to find her. It is really obvious that she loves being outside. She also munches the horsetail weeds that are such a problem in our yard. Homie says we need a whole herd of turtles to keep the horsetail weeds under control! We made a special pen for her by blocking off both ends of the garden beds. We thought she would be happy there, as it was millions of times bigger than her little cage. We were wrong. After a few minutes in her outside pen, she found a crack and pushed until the board slid, and she got out. We put her back and propped up the board again. She didn't waste a second going to the same spot and getting out again. We put her back in and made the weak spot more secure. A while later we checked on her and she was gone again. She'd gotten out at the other end. This happened a few more times before we gave up. We didn't know turtles were so smart! Next, Matt secured the lower portion of the yard really well. Then we put her in, and intended for her to stay in that specific area. We thought surely she would be content there. She spent a long time checking out all along the fence, stopping and peering intently at every crack. Eventually she got to a spot that was not fenced, but it was a very steep slope up a hill and among the rock wall. It lead to the upper yard. Matt was certain she couldn't get up it. A while later I went out tho check on her and sure enough, she was 1/2 way up. Eventually she made it all the way up, and began checking out the entire perimiter of the fenced upper yard. This turtle has some serious boundary issues! Today she pushed the limits even more by finding a gap in the lattice work that led under the gazebo and behind the pond. I wouldn't let her go in. And moved her to a different part of the yard. I then wasted the next half hour studying turtle behavior. No matter where I placed her in the yard, she made a beeline right back to the spot she wanted to explore. Peachy commented, "If she was a person, I think she would be a Maddo personality." Finally I gave up and let her go into the space she wanted to see. I followed her everywhere to make sure she didn't get into a bad situation, or find an even worse crack to escape through. After she had seen enough she crawled back out and went around the yard to her other favorite places like usual. What a crazy little creature. Our friends arrived home today, and I told her how much fun we were having with their pet. She said we could probably keep it because the novelty had worn off with her kids. It is kinda the ward boy scout pet. There is a "Pets" merit badge that the boys can earn if they keep a pet for at least 4 months. This turtle has been passed throught 6 familie so far. I'm not sure I want to take on a full time pet, but it would be fun to have her for a while. The good thing is that we could then pass her on to the next family who wanted to earn the merit badge! We have been calling her Yurtle -- after the Dr. Seuss character, but Brother suggested we call her Lini. That's short for Turtle-lini.