OH Ladies! Thank you from the bottom of my belly for all of those wonderful recipes. I am going to try them one at a time and post on each one of them! *claps hands* this is almost as exciting as catching the Milk Man in the shower... I, I mean ------ oh forget it. SO - yesterday I had to finish my work for
NASS... I only work VERY part time except for 2 times per year Feb, March and 2 weeks in April and the first 2 weeks of June.. those are our heavy hitter months. Anyway, yesterday was my last day to get my June area surveys done so the boys and I were on the road by 7.... figure this feed 6 other people, get my work organized, pack
lunch's, pack diaper bag, pack book/
activity bags for the boys and be on the road by 7 am - YES I SAID 7 AM!!! Today I am bald, in case you were wondering. The reason I am sharing all of this information, yes I finally have a reason and continue to ramble, is we came across a snapping turtle on the road yesterday. We were on a back road that was to die for gorgeous and he was in the middle of it. He is not as big as some I have seen, but he was big enough to take off a finger if he would have gotten a hold of it. Here is a short video -
ok its not real short, but its not going to win awards for focus on a subject either..... in other words, you may get motion sickness from watching it. The point was, I wanted to show my boys that you
DONT PICK UP A SNAPPING TURTLE!!!! This ole guy had been in some fights by the look of him. He was missing his left eye, his tail was mangled and his shell had marks on it. So here it goes....
This was the most gentle snappin turtle I have ever seen.. I have seen them literally chase someone, not like race horse mind you - but they can move pretty fast for a couple of feet and the second you think they wont snap THEY DO!!... They are much faster than you even begin to imagine..... A guy I went to school with had the end of his finger taken off by a snapping turtle - yes he was old enough to know better - but not sober enough to remember he was old enough to know better. They have also been known to bite people while swimming in the creeks the we have around here. Where I grew up we have the most beautiful creek in the world flowing through our pasture - it has 'mud banks' on it - in the summer you could see dozens of turtles laying out there sunning themselves. Growing up, I saw a snapping turtle that was the size of a large serving platter. Or about the size of a Pappa Murphys family sized pizza or bigger even... not that I love Pappa Murphys pizza or anything... cuz I only buy them when I have coupons... and I love their coupons...
SO, that's it for today.... hope you still want to be my friends after hearing me on that video..... I sound scattered don't I? of course that's not normal - I had already been in the car for about 6 hours with those kids I spawned... wouldn't that make you shaky?
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20 comments:
That is so weird, I took photos of a snapper on my road yesterday, too. But I didn't try poking a stick at it, I know better... I actually had one try and drown a duck by its beak a few years ago, Jumped in the pond to save the duck, he had a nasty scar on his beak after that...
The boys had never seen one.. When we got in the car Big Son thanked me for showing him, cuz he would not have believed it if he hadnt seen it.... I have seen them take baby ducks off of the water and eat them. They are not to be messed with.... the boys know now. I know better than to poke a stick at it to - do you think that was a bad idea?? I thought it would help show them why not to touch it - now I am conflicted!!! AAGGG!!!
BTW - I was going to show the marks he left in the stick and forgot!!! I have seen them break the end off of a stick they bite so hard.
Teasin that poor ole snappin turtle , ya outa be shamed grins
almost as dangerous as messin with an OLD snappin momma huh
btw was nice to hear your voice , and wy was the lil milk dud crying anyway , was yall teasin him with a stick as well?
Milk Dud was in the car seat and for some reason thinks he needs to be entertained all the time.... LOL I think my voice sounds a little bit like a drunk dont you? LOL
Have you ever seen what a snappin turtle can do to a person/stick/animal - they are frightening! LOL NOW - how about you do a video so we can hear YOUR voice...
Heidi, I enjoyed your little lesson with the boys and hearing your voice. I think Milk Dud was asking me to hold me!!
We once had a snappin' turtle hold us hostage at our front door...it was huge and I was scared!!! a neighbor had to come and take it away for us!
Glad you taught the boys a very valuable lesson...there are opportunities all around to teach and to learn.
well shoot fire I thought this was cool, especially how to safely move them off of the road. That old guy will live to fight another day instead of becoming road kill.
squished turtle is yukky. So how do you tell the difference between a snapper and those little ones in the lakes?
BTW, for some reason I thought you'd have a higher pitched voice, and there you go gravel girtie. how funny, imaginations are never right. My voice sounds like a girl.
no you don't sound like a drunk.
Maybe we should all post videos. hummmm
Karen - gravel gertie!! LOL its been a long time since anyone called me that. I have been told that I would have a great phone voice for the 900 phone numbers. LOL Regular turtle dont have a jagged shell inthe back AND they have some color on their skin. Snappers are just all greay. If you look at the video on the end, I did a bit of a closer look at his shell and you can see it looks jagged.. :)
now back to my voice - I have had the same sound in my voice since I was a kid... Lispy has my voice... :) people have always laughed because my voice sounds like a 60 year old chain smoker when I get a cold.. LOL I have never smoked a day in my life.!
LOL....greetings mamma with 5.... another mamma with 5 recognizes that babies cry and I totally related to your request to have someone pick him up....brings to mind the good days for me.
While we are too far north to have snapping turtles we have similar discussions with children and town people.... that if you can't see the bottom of the badger hole "DONT stick your arm down there" Badgers are like angry furry snapping turtles. and DONT hiss back at badgers its a battle cry.
You'll be sorry.
I hate my voice on recording too, why is that?
I loved the video! My aunt used to let us pick up turtles (not the snappin' kind) from the road and take them home when we were staying at her house. Actually she let us do just about anything. What great times we had!
We hatched soft shells from eggs that had been kicked up on to the sand on a beach on the Mississippi between WI and MN. We kept them in a 5 gallon bucket, fed them for a week then took them to the game preserve and let them go. Named them all George, cuz one was curious. When hatched they are the size of a quarter, they can get 3 feet across. When I was a kid my uncle would butcher turtles and we would eat them, they taste good.
A friend of our's cousin was swimming in a pond when he was a young teen and a snapper got ahold of his privates! Thank goodness it was a little one! Turtle that is.
Jody - we used to do the same thing with the little rubber balls! its fun to watch them aint it AND my granny was mad that I didnt bring it home for soup! We used to swim in a mud hole that had a floating dock that was 4x5 and many times found HUGE turtels sunning themselves on it.. I thought people would think I was fibbing that they get that big and MEAN!!
SFF - LOL that made me laugh for an hour!!
ya ever get one of those suckers on your fishing line? they are a fight and a half! my papaw used to say that if a snappin' turtle bit you, it wouldn't let go until it thundered. My mama used to skin them out (we won't get into that here) and she would dip the meat in batter and fry it, oh my that was good eatin'. They say they have three different tastes of meat, but I could never tell the difference. Way to go, by the way! Everyone should teach their kids this common sense stuff.
We get tons of turtles around here, mostly painted or box turtles, but some snappers too i think... not very often though.
yay for heidi for saving him, too! :)
I am trying to figure out your accent. I love accents! Midwestern....hmmm..don't tell me, I'll get it........hmmmm....I KNOW. It's Fargo'ish!
:)
Good post.
Enjoyed your snapping turtle video. We had snappers in the river oxbows - the meandering bits of river left over after they dug a straight channel - back home and most families had one smart arse boy who ought to have known better! Once my Dad fetched home a snapper he found on the road that had been hit. He wired and glued his shell back together, fed him for a couple of months, then let him go close to the river. I was maybe 6 or 7, and I couldn't figure out why he wanted to help such a nasty fella. As for MY voice - folks think I'm 90-something cuz it quavers like a frail old granny. Well, I'm a granny, but I'm only 50-something and certainly not frail yet!
It was great to hear a Wisconsin accent again! Of course, I just talked to my friend, Janene--another farmer's wife--earlier today (they have steers, not dairy cows). I don't remember ever seeing a snapping turtle when I lived back there, but I saw plenty of painted turtles. Now I just see slugs. Those are like homeless snails...dirty and gross. And unfortunately, inedible.
When I was about 10, my dad cought and brought home 2 of those big pizza-sized snapping turtles and decided he wanted to make soup. First of all, Turtles do not let go of their heads easily (dad decided to disptch them like you would a chicken). Secondly, their hearts beat for HOURS after they are dead, and thats just weird.
lastly, Im a huge fan of telling my kids tall tales--kind of the highlight of my day (see http://eyeswideshut28.livejournal.com/ to see what I mean). Anyway, I was ran over by my husband's truck a few years back (long story) and I happen to have a really huge hole in the front of my leg because of it. I tell my kids that I was bitten on the leg by a giant snapping turtle when I was trapping lemurs in Alaska back in the old days. They totaly buy it.
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