Okay, it’s not really Jurassic Park, but it kind of feels like it on the teeny tiniest scale. Tortoises have been around for over 55 million years, so she is basically a living fossil. And yes, I am writing about my tortoise again. I’ve been a little worried because I hadn’t seen Strawberry in about a week or two. It’s been really hot, per usual, in Arizona. Then we had weird weather pushed in from Hurricane Hillary in CA.
I am happy and excited to see her out this morning. I immediately grabbed her, which she didn’t like. She hissed at me a few times and shrunk inside her shell. Did you know tortoises can hiss? It’s quite loud and a bit jarring the first time you hear it. After that it becomes adorable, she’s also too little to reach around and bite me. She needs to be socialized more; it’s tough when the weather and air quality make being outside almost impossible.
We just hung out for a bit. It was fun, and Strawberry really enjoyed the trumpet vine flowers; they’re like candy to her. The flowers only grow on new vines. Snaking one out of the big bush and laying it on the ground for her was a great idea.
She started dipping her head into the pools of water gathering between the stones. She is still so tiny. I’ll have to try and remember to measure her before she goes into brumation this winter. Soon, the mosquitoes started biting me. I decided I put her back in her pen and let her carry on with her day. All in all, it was an adventurous morning for this mini dinosaur.
