Turtle Time

After it warmed up here the turtles of Missouri were up and running. You cant drive a mile without seeing a turtle on the road. If I was able I'd pull over and set them back into the grass and head them off away from the road.Many times though it was impossible to pull over and I knew it wasnt going to end well. If you've ever seen a squished turtle its not a pretty site.

My grandkids are turtle crazy here.We have plastic turtles, cement turtles, stuffed turtles , turtle garden ornaments, turtle nightlights( that ones in my room)and even my daughter Mollys nickname is Turtle. That being said I thought it would be cool to bring home a wandering turtle for the kids to check out. So the next one I saw on the road I brought home.

We gave it a nice house in a large tote and fed it watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes and crickets.The kids thought they would help me out and feed Molly some leaves, so they stripped my wisteria vine and fed the leaves to the turtle. I named it Molly after my daughter the one thats nicknamed Turtle ( get it???) I thought it was funny. This was before I went online and found out its a male three-toed box turtle.Then it really was funny.

My parents came to visit and were telling me about my great aunt Lorraine living in a nursing home and wanting to go home. She hates it there and doesnt understand why she is there. I woke up the next morning and realized the turtle was no different than my Aunt...not understanding why it was in a box and just wanting to go home. So Morgan and I took Molly turtle to Shaw Nature Preserve by our house and set Molly turtle free.

I learned a powerful lesson about taking creatures from the wild even though I had justified it to myself by thinking the turtle was better off with us rather than being roadkill. Its better to live a short but happy life rather than longevity spent in misery.

Tubular Trash Eaters

One of our future plans is to have a compost bin for our yard and kitchen waste. Jaime is ok with this as long as it doesnt look "trashy". I plan on making one out of wood and chicken wire and it looks pretty good. Ive had the plans for it laying around since the 80s. We are packing and planning to move soon, so putting one here is out of the question. Ive seen some very nice premade plastic compost bins, and even have a link to a great one on this site, but we have no budget for such things right now. So I decided to start small scale and let worms help me compost our kitchen trash. Its killing me to put scraps into the garbage disposal when we can put them to work for us.I cut some ventilation holes in a tote I had laying around. I also cut a few holes in the bottom for drainage.Ive read where you can use torn up newspaper for bedding, but decided to use some good potting soil for the worms and bury the food on one side at a time so I can just harvest the castings along with the soil when needed. Purchasing worms at $25.00 a lb is also out of the question, so Ive been collecting worms at the house where Im helping with landscaping. I have the bin in the shade because worms like cool temps. They like the soil damp but not soaking wet.There is no odor and the worms seem pretty content for now. Hopefully Jaime will be ok with using worm poop in our garden.

Tomatoes please and hold the salmonella

Yet another outbreak of salmonella in the news...this time its tomatoes. Roma tomatoes and "big round" tomatoes. What variety is big round??? And where do they grow these "big round "tomatoes? I prefer the "small square" ones myself.... come on...
The CDC is investigating but so far no grocery chain or distributor has been found to be a common factor yet. The tomatoes were consumed raw and it hasnt been determined whether the bacteria was on the skin of the tomatoes or in the flesh itself.
At first I was going to rant about our food sources, but was wondering if our own homegrown food could become contaminated through animal feces. If salmonella bacteria lives in the intestinal tracts of humans and animals...can it not be "dropped" into our gardens by rabbits or mice...deer or birds??? What if we use manure in our gardens. Unless we test the horse or cows or goats or chickens whose poop we use then how are we to know for sure???
Our best defense would be to wash, wash, wash every bit of produce that goes in our mouths...even the "prewashed" salad mixes that are sold in the grocery store. I love picking cherry tomatoes , peas, berries and popping them into my mouth...maybe not such a good idea anymore...