Turtles

I've been feeding snapping turtles meat scrapes for ten years and they readily except offerings of hot dogs from my fingers or preferable from the end of a long stick. I do not recommend finger feeding. Turtles have excellent memories and if not killed or captured return to our pond year after year hungry for their annual summer hand out.

Snapping turtles have great vision both in and out of water with a life span of over one hundred years. It is said turtles do not have ears, though somehow they seem to detect my presence from great distance, jet skiing crossed the pond seeking my hand out.

It seems a little foolish to talk to something with out ears but I feel they get my vibrations. Many ask where did our pond turtles come from? Most found their way on their own, one was given to me and one giant I removed from an unwanted location. People say snapping turtles are mean, ugly and stink, friends many humans suffer from the same affliction. Each year our turtle count dwindles, trapped for soup, hit by cars, shot for sport and picked up on the roadside while laying eggs.

I do what I can to protect turtles and eggs by providing safe laying areas less frequented by predators such as skunks and raccoon.

Turtles are part of my life and bring me great enjoyment, would it not be sad if due to our needless slaughter and uncaring this prehistoric creature should become extinct leaving only pictures and movies to show how this so called ill tempered ugly creature will hiss and snap when tormented and teased with sticks. Law forbids the molesting of turtles laying eggs and tampering or removal of eggs from the nest. I can only ask “please do not” shoot, kill or run over turtles. Yes! A turtle shell will smash under the weight of a car. Please do not use turtles as tire targets for sport. There are endless delicacies which can be purchased on the market leaving little need to behead the poor turtle.

Recently I was informed by a friend ammonia sprinkled sparingly on top of the ground over a turtle egg nest will act as a deterrent to predators.

I have never tried ammonia as a deterrent. I protect the nest by installing an eighteen inch diameter by three to four foot tall large wire mesh screen extending both above and below the ground. Close in the top by pulling the mesh together and fasten. Be careful not to disturb the eggs during installation.

If the wire mesh opening is not large enough to allow the hatching turtles to escape they must be remove by hand.

Hatching time varies and requires a frequent watch during the months of September, October and November. I have read some newly hatched turtles do not leave the nest until the following spring, although I feel this is rare.

Written by The Turtle Man (Gene)

FOREIGN TRADE AGREEMENT

The first change was automation

it shortened up my week day,

worked a band of check free robots

that really cut my pay.

Then came the foreign trade agreement

I love it more each day,

we don’t have to work no more

it took our jobs away.

The government now supports us

but the money when it’s gone,

we’ll be eating rice and sushi

until our jobs they come back home.

Soon we’ll dwell in cardboard boxes

be living on the streets,

gathered around old burn barrels

to warm our hands and feet.

While the rich line their pockets

turn their nose up at hungry poor,

as they steal some countries crude oil

expecting us to fight their war.

When we get darn good and hungry

only soup kitchens on the street,

forced to work for a few pennies

with foreign labor we’ll compete.

Now look on the bright side of things

how could we ask for more,

over seas child and slave labor

brought us the dollar store.

It also brought us jumping carp

zebra muscles, bugs and worms,

weeds, walking cat fish and gobies

disease and anthrax germs.

Now add the good, subtract the bad

convert to dollars then again

subtract life style, failing economy,

you’ll come up with minus ten.

Who was it sold us into bondage

though it was against our will?

Our government and big business

the American dream pays the bill.

Imported beef, grain and honey

forced farm land sold, most gone,

orange groves cut, developers grin

all together now we sing this song.

The government now supports us

but the money when she is gone,

we’ll be eating rice and sushi

until our jobs they come back home.

FRACKING IN RHYME

Seems we are having a fracking war,

many oppose it, still others are for.

Each side having their right to choose,

for one to win the other must loose.

One side seeks money and natural gas,

the other clear water in drinking glass.

One has dollar backing to push it through,

the other pray their prayers come true.

Showered in this abundance of oil and gas,

a pipeline shall be built to seacoast fast.

Foreign tanker ships will line the shore,

gas prices will jump higher than before.

You may think I'm off, jumped my track,

I have eighty three years to recall back.

Been there, heard that, put in my time,

seen big money flip it's one sided dime.

Do your oil lease research long before,

that one sided contract comes in the door.

Take a drink of water before you choose,

many States already suffer fracking blues.

They say impossible, water won't burn,

no match by faucet if fracking a concern.

I'm not wealthy, my trucks 21 years old,

will drive 20 more, my oil rights to hold.

No fracture, fracking on my sacred land,

until the deed's ripped from my aging hand.

Frackers fear not you've got the dime,

government, big money back your behind.

Wildlife

BEAVER

It was in the early spring of 2006 when three beaver escaped holocaust finding refuge in our three quarter acre wild life pond.
In appearance they were young beaver looking somewhat bloated.
Two of the beaver seemed in fair condition the third having broken free from a trap or shot was dragging a paralyzed back leg. The cripple swam extremely slow and was reluctant to move when approached.

I immediately welcomed the homeless beaver by cutting aspen saplings and placing them in the pond. My offering of a new home and aspen were readily accepted. The beaver soon supplemented their diet by cutting unwanted willow and tag alter from the shoreline including small aspen located a short distance from the pond. I was forced to selective guard birch and spruce trees leaving the beaver only trees I had debated removing myself. To my knowledge beaver eat birch when other foods are unavailable and never eat spruce or pine. No attempt was made to make a feed bed or build a beaver house. These apparently were bank beaver making dens in the bank with underwater entrance. In late fall I found a dead beaver on the shore line possibly the cripple.

By fall there was no evidence of a feed bed but I noticed several bank dens. The beaver wintered under the ice surviving on cattail roots, pond lily roots, water weeds. Weekly I shoved fresh cut aspen under the ice. Paul Strong’s book titled “Beavers” states bark is not easy to digest so beaver prefer cattail, arrowhead, pond weed, smart weed, milfoil, pond lily, a variety of sedges, nettles, blackberry, gritty stems of bulrushes and large masses of algae or pond scum which they swim into and pull together with their front paws. When I fed the beaver aspen leaves were eaten first. By mid summer our pond was nearly free of unwanted weeds, cattail and pond lily which threaten to take over. Beaver are natures natural weed control.
Nature has played a great part in my life and I feel it’s time to give back. Our wild land acreage provides habitat for all wildlife be it bird, fish, amphibian, snake, or mammal.