Who dunnit?

I posted this series of pictures on facebook and asked the age-old question “Who done it?” 

First:

Little hole in the ground.

This hole is about the size of a quarter, in the lawn with no dirt or any sign of digging around it.

Second:

Tracks on tracks

These little tracks were made on top of the car’s tire tracks.

Third:

Baby turtle

This is a baby snapping turtle.  Also, not much bigger than the size of a quarter.  I remember seeing the nest the mama snapper made back in June, but she covers the hole and it become completely invisible after a rain or two.   I’m surprised when those babies make their way out of the ground several months later.

Fourth:

5 turtles

Within just a few minutes, I found these 5 babies making their way across the lawn heading for the river.  There were lots of tracks in the sandy driveway, so there must have been multiple nests that all hatched over night. 

Shortly after I took the pictures, I carried this bucket of babies to the back waters of the river.  On the way, I nearly stepped on a sixth baby taking the same path as I was.  So I scooped him up and took him along on the fast path to the water.  I’m always amazed at how these tiny critters know how to get to water and what to do once they get there.  Have you ever seen a newly hatched turtle?

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Mother Nature is right on time!

Remember this from in June?   It turned out to be a rather bad year from the snapping turtle nests in the yard this year.  Two were dug up by raccoons and, I’m guessing, all the eggs destroyed – there was a pile of egg shells.  The raccoons found nests we didn’t even know about. 

But as I went out to do chores last night I saw this on the sidewalk:

Heading out

Sure enough, there was a small hole in the flower garden near the garage wall.

More to come

It was hard to see down the hole, but I got a little flashlight and got this photo.  But all the attention must have been too much for this guy.  He turned around and I never did see him come out of the hole. 

How cute is that?

Aren’t they tiny?  Their shell is about the size of a quarter.  They can really move on those short legs.   It took several tries until I got a photo before the little guy walked right off the edge of my hand.  I looked around and gathered up all the babies that I could find above ground. 

Going for a ride

I found these eight and took them to the edge of the river and let them go.  I wandered around the yard thinking I might find more, but didn’t see any others.  I hope the others made it to the river.  I am always amazed that they seem to hatch on Labor Day weekend every year.  Good luck, little turtles!

Golden with goldenrod

While it was still chilly outside this morning, I went on a goldenrod hunt.  I took a short walk near our yard and found over 2 pounds of goldenrod blossoms.  

In the bag

 It did help to do the collecting before the heat of the day, but I still got a bunch of bugs and spiders in my bag of goldenrods.  So I took my pot of water on the deck, dumped all the goldenrods and bugs into  the pot,

Overflowing pot

smashed them into the pot,

All in the pot

 put on the lid, put the pot on the stove, and didn’t look in the pot until it water was boiling!  I cooked the blossoms for about an hour.  

Cooked goldenrods

 I poured off the dye.  The cooked blossoms go to the compost pile.  The dye went back to the stove and I put 2 skeins of yarn in it.  I let the yarn simmer for nearly an hour, then cool down for a few more hours.  After a rinse and wash, I hung the yarn to dry. 

Dyed with goldenrods

On the left is 4 oz of 80% alpaca / 20% silk lace weight.   The right is 4 oz of 100% alpaca sport weight.

While at Pie Day last month, I had a guy ask about an ear flap hat in blaze orange.  It got me thinking.  While the goldenrod dye pot was cooking, I put my last packets of Tangerine Kool-Aid into a pot of water and dyed enough yarn to make a hat.  Check this yarn out! 

Seriously orange!

The regular Orange Kool-Aid is no where near this orange.  The Tangerine is a Spanish flavor and it is hard to find.  I found it by accident at a dollar store awhile back and haven’t seen it since!  

And we discovered a snapping turtle nest was hatching today.  We gathered around 20 for a friend who has a pond.  And 17 more crawled out.

Baby snappers

Those 17 I delivered to the back waters of the river where their mother went back to after she laid the eggs in June!   They are so darn cute when they are first hatched.