My backyard turtle
We have lived in our present home for twenty-five years and for all of those years, we have shared our half-acre yard with box turtles. Mainly, with one box turtle. For most of those years, there was a very distinctive box turtle that lived in our yard. We were able to recognize her from year to year because of an unusual patch of damage on her shell. This was Sam Box in 2009. Hard to mistake her for any other box turtle. We would generally start seeing Sam in May, once the weather warmed up sufficiently. I would encounter her at various times and places in the garden as I went about my activities there. But at some point during those years, Sam developed a cat food habit, and after that I saw her even more regularly. It happened like this. We have two outdoor cats who live in our backyard. They are both neutered and quite docile cats, now quite aged at fifteen. Charlie the cat at his bath. Both cats coexist with the wildlife that inhabits the yard, including the turtle. I feed Charlie...