Bones The Box Turtle
A semi-fictional story about the life of a very special box turtle. (this is a work in progress so come back often for more of Bones.
By Steve O'Neil 2008
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina there is a tiny community known as Cedar Mountain. In the heart of Cedar Mountain, about 35 years ago on a late summer’s day, in a beautiful green forest a tiny Eastern Box Turtle was born. He was less than 2 inches long, had tiny brown eyes and a tiny greenish-brown shell with a few small yellow markings and beautiful orange, black and white markings on his tiny leg scales. Many years later this tiny turtle would be given the name “Bones” by some helpful humans who found him and spent some time with him while they tried to learn more about his life.
Part 1. Day One.
Bones the tiny turtle used all his strength to pull himself out of the leathery egg where he had spent the last few months becoming a turtle and he was tired, hungry and anxious. He wanted to see the sun and to feed but he knew that he must wait—he must wait for the rain. He was underground in the nest chamber with his 5 siblings who had also just hatched out of their eggs. They all waited and rested together for what seemed like a very long time. Then it began to rain. It rained very hard for a few hours and soaked the soil above the nest. Water seeped into the nest chamber from above and dripped onto the tiny leathery, turtle shells and they all drank their fill of their first drink of water. The rain also softened the soil so the tiny turtles could dig their way to the surface so they did. They pushed and clawed at the soil, stepping on each others backs and heads and soon out they came into the bright late afternoon sun. They emerged into a small clearing in the forest where many different kinds of grasses and herbs grew in abundance. All around them there were curling wisps of water vapor rising up from the freshly soaked soil and plants around them. Gigantic trees stood nearby with thick undergrowth that looked very frightening to such tiny animals. Nearby the tiny turtles saw a pond who’s waters shimmered as blue as the sky and all around the pond was thick vegetation of all kinds that looked safe and inviting. Off the tiny turtles went crawling back and forth in all directions through the tall grasses toward the pond. Suddenly a dark shadow passed across the sun, there was a flurry of feathers and in an instant one of the tiny turtles was forever gone--a large black bird with a chisel-like beak and huge shiny eye had eaten it for breakfast! Bones and the remaining hatchlings were afraid for their lives and ran as fast as they could (and that’s not very fast) toward the safety of the mosses near the waters edge. Once they were there they vanished into the thick grasses and mosses and stayed very still for a very long time.
Part 2. A New World.
The first night for Bones was very scary because he could not see—he was not afraid of the dark but he was afraid of what hungry creatures may lurk about in the dark. Something deep inside told him that he should dig himself as deep as he could into the thickest vegetation that he could find and then dig down into the damp moss until he was almost totally covered up so he did. He was so small and his shell was a greenish-black color and if he did not move he was almost invisible, camouflaged and safe from predators as he drifted off to sleep.
Splash splash SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!!! And Bones was fast awake! What was making that sound? Something was coming closer through the water and it was still dark so Bones could not see what it was! SPLASH! Snnnnoooorrrtttt! And Bones felt hot damp breath above him but he could not see that it was a massive Black Bear! It was foraging along the edge of the pond looking for anything it could eat and baby turtles were always on its menu. The huge animal smelled strange and powerful and to Bones it was a scary smell—-a smell that his instinct told him was pure danger. Bones did not move or breathe. Drool from the bears mouth dripped onto Bones’s back and ran down onto his tiny feet and he still did not move. The bear snorted again and then moved off along the shore of the pond and was gone as fast as it had come. Bear was a smell that he would always remember.
The first rays of the morning sun woke Bones with their welcoming warmth. He felt cold but his little inner voice told him to warm up so he could move fast enough to catch food and evade predators. Bones listened for a time and heard nothing but the strange and wonderful sounds of frogs and birds so he slowly stuck his neck out as far as it would go until he could see out of his hidey-hole. He looked all around for a good while and then seeing nothing scary he pulled himself out of his mossy hiding place and stopped on the top of a small hump of soft Sphagnum moss. He slowly turned his body toward the sun like a solar panel so he could collect as much warmth as possible. Bones is a reptile and reptiles are cold blooded which means that their body temperature is the same as their surroundings so for Bones to be ready to hunt for food he would have to warm up to “turtle temperature.” After awhile Bones began to feel warm and full of energy…then he started to feel VERY hungry! It is no wonder that he was hungry—Bones had never eaten before so off he went in search of food. Smack! Bones turned a corner around a small tree and ran into a gray, slimy thing…eeeoooowwww…it was sticky and slimy but…sniffff…sniffff…when Bones stuck his nose on it and smelled it...sniffffff…it smelled GREAT! Oooooo it just moved…and it moved again and in just the right way that said FOOD! Bones instinct was telling him to eat it so he did. He stretched his neck out, opened his tiny mouth and SNAP took a bite. The thing tasted juicy and good and the slime helped it go down easy so he ate every bit of it. His first meal was sooo good so it was then and there that Bones decided that he loved to eat slug. After his first meal he began to feel another craving—he was drawn to the water—why he did not understand but he followed his instinct again and went to the waters edge. He walked down the moss into the calm shallow water and drank his fill. It felt good going down and it felt good all around as it washed over his tiny body cleaning off the slug juice, dirt and bear drool. Bones sat in the water for awhile and decided that he loved the way it felt on his scaly skin. He drank some more then walked back up onto the mossy hill to sit in the sun some more and soon he was fast asleep.
Scratch, scratch sniff sniff scratch scratch sniff sniff came a sound and Bones was awake. He looked all around and saw nothing but the tall reeds and grasses and soft moss of his waterside home. Scratch sniff there it was again and this time it was closer! Bones was out in the open on the mossy hill and he was very afraid. He wanted to run but he wanted to stay still also. He could not see the thing so he chose to run and hope it did not see him. He ran down the hill and crawled under a few dead leaves that were under a rotten log where he wedged himself between a low spot in the log and the ground where he became very still and waited. Seconds later black foot with sharp claws stepped on his mossy hill on the exact spot where he had been sleeping only moments before! The foot was attached to an animal that bones’ little voice said was even more dangerous than the Bear—it was Raccoon! Raccoon stuck its masked face down to the mossy hill and sniffed again and again and made a strange chortling sound. Did it smell him? It sniffed again and again and then it stuck its nose only inches from Bones’ head and sniffed. It then started to dig rapidly in the leaves under the other end of the log with its front paws! The ground was shaking but Bones didn’t move and then the Raccoon sat up with something in its mouth. Bones looked closer and saw that the Raccoon had a caught a large frog and was eating it. Bones saw the Raccoons sharp teeth and felt lucky that it wasn’t him in the Raccoons mouth—-so he stayed very still and soon it moved off and was gone. Bones felt tired and drifted off to sleep under the log and slept for several days.
Part 3. The Torrent!
He was awakened by a loud rumbling sound from the sky accompanied by a bright flash. The rumblings continued for what seemed like along time then all was very quiet…even the birds stopped singing and there was no wind at all. Bones smelled something new; it was a good smell, a wet smell and smell of water, a smell of life. Then there was a sound like a whisper and the rain began to fall all around. It was soft at first but then became harder falling from the sky in torrents that obscured all vision. Bones could not see out from his hidey-hole or even to the top of the mossy hill. He wasn’t scared at all and in fact he was very happy and he didn’t know why. He crawled up out of his hole, stood tall on his little feet and stretched his neck out as far as it would go and opened his mouth. The rain poured down and ran into his mouth and he took a long drink of the cool fresh water. He stood beside the log in the warm rain for a long time and was almost asleep when he was suddenly awakened by a rushing and gurgling sound. Suddenly from out of the grass to the North came a huge wave of water--it was a flash flood! It swept Bones off of the mossy hill and sent him tumbling head over tail into the middle of the pond! The current was so strong but Bones still paddled his tiny feet as fast as he could. There were other things in the water that kept bumping into Bones—logs, sticks and other things that had been washed down stream along with the water. Bones was getting tired in the cool water and was losing energy, he stuck his head out of the water and took a deep breath and then was driven down deep in the pond by a blast of water. He became tangled in a water plant and was trying to free himself when a huge mouth closed over him—-he was in the mouth of a Largemouth Bass! It was dark and bumpy and the fishes huge tongue was beginning to push up on the tangled mass of grasses. The little voice inside bones’ head screamed “STOP” so Bones froze as he had done when Raccoon and Bear has come near. The huge tongue moved up and down a few more times then stopped and the fish spit him out thinking he was just a tangled glob of grass. He and the grass tumbled through the water and floated to the surface where Bones gulped in a huge gasp of air then suddenly, Bones and his grass clump was caught in a swift current and swept away. The raging water carried Bones in his tangled mass of grass across the pond and then sucked him down into a deep dark pipe. After a long scary fall he landed with a splash in a raging torrent of water that sucked him under the pond’s dam and spit him out into a rushing creek. The creek quickly carried him downstream for a great distance through the forest and through a dark cave before joining with a larger creek. Bones and his grass clump were then gently washed up on the creek bank in some soft sand. Bones was so exhausted from the wild ride that he just fell asleep in the tangled mass of grass and didn’t wake up until the next morning. During the night Bones had a dream. It was a strange dream where Bear and Raccoon were dancing with Bass as the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled overhead. Nearby his brothers and sisters were sitting on the mossy hill watching in wonderment as Bones was eating the biggest slug they had ever seen…it was so big that it towered over them all and was actually very scary. As Bones ate the giant slug his face started to feel very warm and his siblings started to hiss loudly and then suddenly the dream world vanished and Bones awoke to the warm sun on his face and the gurgling creek only a few feet away.
Part 4: The Long Trek
Bones let the sun warm him for a long while before he even moved. Slowly he freed his legs from the grass and pulled himself out of the tangled mass of weeds. He then realized that he was exposed and in the open on the sandbar at the edge of the creek…and he did not know where he was. Bones was lost. He quickly made his way to the reeds near the waters edge and hid deep inside. He took a deep breath and smelled the air for familiar smells but detected only dampness from the recent flood and many unknown scents. His little voice of instinct then said “go upstream” so that is what he did. Off he went in the direction he had come from. Bones walked for the entire day before stopping to eat a beetle and then hide under a rotten stump for the night. The next morning he walked for a short distance before he came to a place where the creek flowed out of a hole in a high, steep hillside. This must be the cave he passed through on his speedy journey downstream during the flash flood. Bones looked at the hole and he looked at the creek and his little voice told him that it was not possible for such a tiny turtle to follow the water through the hole in the hill. He decided that the only way home was to go up and over the steep hill so up he went. After he had clambered through some thick grass and stopped to eat a snail he stopped in his tracks when he felt a deep rumbling in the earth coming from the west that shook his tiny bones. It wasn’t the sky rumblings that he felt and heard sometimes when it rains—this came up from the ground through his tiny feet and his little voice said DANGER! The rumbling grew quickly stronger and then there was a sudden sound like a great wind--WooooOOOSSSSsshhhh…and all was quiet again. Bones quickly crawled deep under the nearby grass and hid very still. He waited for a few moments and when the danger did not return he felt safe and began to venture out and suddenly rumble RUMBLE Wooosh again! This time it was from the east…WoosSSSSssshhhh…and it was quiet again so Bones hid deeper into the grass. As he lay there listening to the sounds he felt trapped and very afraid by the strange rumbling sound, he felt like he should not move until it was gone. Soon the sun went down and the night creatures began to call and prowl so Bones dug a little deeper into the grass, held very still and soon fell into a light and restless sleep. He was awakened several times during the night by the scary sound but he did not move for the entire night and well into the next day. By mid afternoon of the next day Bones was beginning to get overheated because he was so exposed to the heat of the sun in the small clump of grass. He needed to move but he was afraid of the “thing” that had kept him captive in the grass for so long. His little voice told him over and over “move, move, move or you will die.” Bones knew that he could not go back down the hill because this was the wrong way…his little voice had already told him that this was not the way to his home near the pond. He knew that he must follow the water uphill if he wanted to find the familiar smells and places of his moist mossy home. He slowly made his way out of the grass into the bright sun, there was no more places to hide and no more shade near the top of the hill—only short cropped grass—as if some large herd of grazing animals had eaten it down almost to the ground. Bones felt very exposed, it was so hot and he was so thirsty. As he walked as fast as he could toward the top of the hill he began to feel as if he was cooking in his shell so he opened his mouth and began to pant. Then he wiped his spittle all over his face and front legs and this felt sooo good. It cooled him down so he could think again. RRuuummmbbbbllleeeee WooooosssHHHhhhh went the thing again and this time Bones saw the source of the sound—it was a huge shiny red thing with four black legs and it was moving very fast from the west to the east. It was gone and as bones watched it continued east and disappeared into the far distance. What was this animal? How could it move so fast? Why was it going so fast? Bones didn’t know the answer to any of these questions and he did not care—he just wanted to go home to his pond and its safety. He sat for a moment to make sure on more of the red monsters came and then started walking as fast as he could over the top of the hill. The top was flat and had a black rock on it that stretched as far as he could see from east to west. Bones walked out onto the rock and started across. As he walked his feet began to feel warm…then hot…the sun had cooked the rock for hours making it very hot!! His feet hurt so bad so he stopped walking halfway across the rock, pulled his feet up and rested on the bottom of his shell. This rock would be a good place to warm up if the weather was cooler said Bones’ little voice…if it wasn’t for the big red monsters and the exposed feeling. Bones rubbed some more spittle over his face and legs and felt much cooler. Suddenly from the east he saw something approaching…it was huge and he could feel it rumbling starting! The ground was shaking and the monster was almost upon him so he started to run to the safety of the other side of the rock. The thing was big, black and had a huge thing on its back—almost like his shell—and then WOOOOOSSSHHHHH it passed only inches from Bones almost crushing him with its giant black feet! It was much bigger than the other creature and much longer. A huge wind followed this creature and it grabbed at Bones, lifted him up and hurled him through the air and into the grass on the other side of the rock! He was upside down, stunned and afraid. He lay there for a moment not sure of what had just happened. His little voice told him what to do so he stuck his head and legs way out and twisted his neck up and over and flip—he was upright again! He looked around and discovered that he was on the other side of the rock so of he went across the grass and down the hill into the welcome shade of the bushes. He crawled under some leaves down to the damp soil to cool off for awhile and soon he was fast asleep. A few hours later he awoke with a very dry mouth and his little voice yelling WATER! So he dug out of the leaves and headed downhill through the bushes. He came out of the bushes and almost fell into the stream. He had made it, somehow he had made it. He made his way along the stream bank until he found a shallow spot—he didn’t want to get washed back under the hill again—-and then eased down to the waters edge and walked into the water until he was shell deep in the cool creek. He drank long of the cool, clean water letting it wash over his face and shell. It felt so good on his feet and seemed to give him a new energy. Bones just loved the water.
Part 5. Home again.
As he drank his fill and sat in the cool stream for a few hours Bones began to smell a familiar smell…it was the smell of home. Somewhere far upstream the old log beside the mossy hill was calling to him. It was time to move on toward home so off he went up the creek one step at a time. The creek bottom was sandy and the water was shallow in most places so Bones had no trouble making his way upstream. In a few places the stream deepened into crystal clear holes full of shinny minnows, snails and salamanders. Bones ate several snails and one unlucky big black salamander before continuing onward upstream.
One very hot day Bones found a huge Oak tree whose roots grew in a tangled mass down into the water. Pockets of glorious squishy mud had collected in between the roots and Bones found one that was just the perfect size for a little box turtle so he eased down into the soft mud to escape the hot sun. He stayed in the nice mud for several days until the heat wave ended when a mid afternoon rain shower awakened him from his slumber. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a young crayfish sitting very close to his head! It moved in such a way that made Bones’ stomach growl with hunger so he slowly eased his head out as far as it would go and then SNAP—-he bit the crayfish in half with his sharp little beak! It tasted sooo good after several days without food that he ate the entire creature even though it was a bit crunchy. The meal gave Bones a new energy so he pulled himself out of the thick, wet mud and into the stream to wash off. As the mud washed off of his body Bones began to feel harder drops of rain fall on his back—this brought back a memory of the flood that washed him downstream and into his present location—so he quickly made his way out of the stream and into the nearby forest. He walked along the edge of the stream in the pouring rain following it uphill toward home. A few hours later it began to get dark so Bones found a hollow, rotten log and cautiously crawled inside to take shelter for the night. He could not see in the semi-darkness of the log as his eyes adjusted to the dark so he settled down in a small depression where the log met the ground. His feet felt a tangle of small roots and soil along with what felt like warm, dry grass so he dug into the grass to go to sleep and then suddenly the grass moved! Whatever it was it was not grass and it turned around to see what had tickled its body. In the low light of the rotten log Bones saw the strangest and scariest creature he had ever seen—it was a huge Opossum! Opossum sat there looking around with its beady little black eyes trying to figure out what had disturbed its slumber. It sniffed the air with its round, pink nose then opened its mouth to yawn showing Bones its 50 big, sharp, pointy teeth! The sight of these teeth terrified Bones but he just sat perfectly still in terror. Then the Opossum in its searching put its pink, sweaty foot directly on top of Bones! The weight of the Opossum hurt his shell terribly but it was what saved his life because if the Opossum had discovered Bones it would have surely eaten him in one quick chomp. The Opossum’s foot pressed Bones down through the tangled roots and he fell through the ground with a thump onto his back into the pitch dark of a tunnel in the earth. His little voice shouted “danger—turn over” so he did just that. Seconds later the nose of the Opossum poked through the hole he had just fallen through and began sniffing loudly. Its damp warmth brushed Bones’ head, took another sniff and then the Opossum stuck its giant wet tongue all over Bones head and back—yuck! Then the Opossum started digging trying to reach the tasty morsel it had just discovered! Bones little voice yelled RUN so off he went even though he could not see where he was going. He ran and ran through the tunnel in the dark, hitting the side of the tunnel several times before he finally stopped when he couldn’t hear the sniffing and digging of the Opossum behind him and then he dug himself into a small pile of dirt and fell asleep.
What seemed like several hours or possibly days later he awakened in the dark, buried in dirt and he was cold, his stomach hurt and his little voice said “get warm or die!” Bones just had to get to the surface and sit in the warm sun so his big meal of crayfish would be able to digest so he dug himself out of the dirt and sat there in the dark for awhile trying to figure out which way to go in the blackness. Soon he started walking through the dark tunnel in the earth. It twisted and turned around rocks and over roots and Bones kept bumping into the walls and tripping over things he could not see. After what seemed like hours of walking in the dark and running into things Bones saw light! It was very faint but it was still light so Bones quickened his pace in the old root tunnel and the closer he came to the light the better he could see things around him—roots hung down from above and rocks stuck out of the walls in some places and on the walls of the tunnel there were huge Crickets about half the size of Bones! The crickets waved their feelers in the air trying to make sense of the strange surface dweller who had invaded their home. Soon Bones came to the source of the light—a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel that led up and out of the tunnel! Bones looked up and saw the sky through the canopy of leaves above and he could smell the forest and nearby creek. He wanted to climb to safety as fast as his little turtle legs could carry him but he remembered his close call with Opossum so he waited and listened for a time then when he felt it was safe he slowly and quietly climbed up through the hole to the surface at last and into the bright sun. He sat half in and half out of the hole checking the surrounding area for Opossum or any other danger that might be nearby. As he sat very still in the sun he could feel the energy returning to his body and his stomach ache soon went away and he felt like himself again. Finally he felt that it was safe to move so he started walking toward the smell of the creek that was coming through the thick Rhododendrons in front of him. Once he made it to the creek he walked into the water and walked straight in and totally submerged himself in the cool clean water. He sat there for several hours until he felt “just right” then made his way back to the creek bank where he dug down into some thick reeds for the night.
Bones awoke and felt a cool chill in the air—his first fall was upon him. He was so cool he could not move right away so he waited until the sun warmed his patch of reeds and his tiny body before moving on. Deep inside his little voice was saying “get home, get home” so he spent the next few days walking as fast as he could upstream following the scent of home as it became stronger and stronger until one day everything looked and smelled just right--Bones was home.
Bones spent the next few months living in the area of the mossy hill, the rotten log and the deep moss of the waters edge. He had a daily routine of warming in the sun, hunting for yummy slugs and other food like tiny insects and spiders, snails, tadpoles and fish. He would take shelter under the log or in the deep moss at night and soak in the shallow water by the ponds edge when he needed a soak. Bones only seldom encountered his siblings in their constant search for food, water and shelter. They were so small and the world was so big and tiny turtles do not move very fast or very far--but life was good.
Part 6. Strange Visitors.
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
CLICK HERE FOR HOMEPAGE
By Steve O'Neil 2008
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina there is a tiny community known as Cedar Mountain. In the heart of Cedar Mountain, about 35 years ago on a late summer’s day, in a beautiful green forest a tiny Eastern Box Turtle was born. He was less than 2 inches long, had tiny brown eyes and a tiny greenish-brown shell with a few small yellow markings and beautiful orange, black and white markings on his tiny leg scales. Many years later this tiny turtle would be given the name “Bones” by some helpful humans who found him and spent some time with him while they tried to learn more about his life.
Part 1. Day One.
Bones the tiny turtle used all his strength to pull himself out of the leathery egg where he had spent the last few months becoming a turtle and he was tired, hungry and anxious. He wanted to see the sun and to feed but he knew that he must wait—he must wait for the rain. He was underground in the nest chamber with his 5 siblings who had also just hatched out of their eggs. They all waited and rested together for what seemed like a very long time. Then it began to rain. It rained very hard for a few hours and soaked the soil above the nest. Water seeped into the nest chamber from above and dripped onto the tiny leathery, turtle shells and they all drank their fill of their first drink of water. The rain also softened the soil so the tiny turtles could dig their way to the surface so they did. They pushed and clawed at the soil, stepping on each others backs and heads and soon out they came into the bright late afternoon sun. They emerged into a small clearing in the forest where many different kinds of grasses and herbs grew in abundance. All around them there were curling wisps of water vapor rising up from the freshly soaked soil and plants around them. Gigantic trees stood nearby with thick undergrowth that looked very frightening to such tiny animals. Nearby the tiny turtles saw a pond who’s waters shimmered as blue as the sky and all around the pond was thick vegetation of all kinds that looked safe and inviting. Off the tiny turtles went crawling back and forth in all directions through the tall grasses toward the pond. Suddenly a dark shadow passed across the sun, there was a flurry of feathers and in an instant one of the tiny turtles was forever gone--a large black bird with a chisel-like beak and huge shiny eye had eaten it for breakfast! Bones and the remaining hatchlings were afraid for their lives and ran as fast as they could (and that’s not very fast) toward the safety of the mosses near the waters edge. Once they were there they vanished into the thick grasses and mosses and stayed very still for a very long time.
Part 2. A New World.
The first night for Bones was very scary because he could not see—he was not afraid of the dark but he was afraid of what hungry creatures may lurk about in the dark. Something deep inside told him that he should dig himself as deep as he could into the thickest vegetation that he could find and then dig down into the damp moss until he was almost totally covered up so he did. He was so small and his shell was a greenish-black color and if he did not move he was almost invisible, camouflaged and safe from predators as he drifted off to sleep.
Splash splash SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!!! And Bones was fast awake! What was making that sound? Something was coming closer through the water and it was still dark so Bones could not see what it was! SPLASH! Snnnnoooorrrtttt! And Bones felt hot damp breath above him but he could not see that it was a massive Black Bear! It was foraging along the edge of the pond looking for anything it could eat and baby turtles were always on its menu. The huge animal smelled strange and powerful and to Bones it was a scary smell—-a smell that his instinct told him was pure danger. Bones did not move or breathe. Drool from the bears mouth dripped onto Bones’s back and ran down onto his tiny feet and he still did not move. The bear snorted again and then moved off along the shore of the pond and was gone as fast as it had come. Bear was a smell that he would always remember.
The first rays of the morning sun woke Bones with their welcoming warmth. He felt cold but his little inner voice told him to warm up so he could move fast enough to catch food and evade predators. Bones listened for a time and heard nothing but the strange and wonderful sounds of frogs and birds so he slowly stuck his neck out as far as it would go until he could see out of his hidey-hole. He looked all around for a good while and then seeing nothing scary he pulled himself out of his mossy hiding place and stopped on the top of a small hump of soft Sphagnum moss. He slowly turned his body toward the sun like a solar panel so he could collect as much warmth as possible. Bones is a reptile and reptiles are cold blooded which means that their body temperature is the same as their surroundings so for Bones to be ready to hunt for food he would have to warm up to “turtle temperature.” After awhile Bones began to feel warm and full of energy…then he started to feel VERY hungry! It is no wonder that he was hungry—Bones had never eaten before so off he went in search of food. Smack! Bones turned a corner around a small tree and ran into a gray, slimy thing…eeeoooowwww…it was sticky and slimy but…sniffff…sniffff…when Bones stuck his nose on it and smelled it...sniffffff…it smelled GREAT! Oooooo it just moved…and it moved again and in just the right way that said FOOD! Bones instinct was telling him to eat it so he did. He stretched his neck out, opened his tiny mouth and SNAP took a bite. The thing tasted juicy and good and the slime helped it go down easy so he ate every bit of it. His first meal was sooo good so it was then and there that Bones decided that he loved to eat slug. After his first meal he began to feel another craving—he was drawn to the water—why he did not understand but he followed his instinct again and went to the waters edge. He walked down the moss into the calm shallow water and drank his fill. It felt good going down and it felt good all around as it washed over his tiny body cleaning off the slug juice, dirt and bear drool. Bones sat in the water for awhile and decided that he loved the way it felt on his scaly skin. He drank some more then walked back up onto the mossy hill to sit in the sun some more and soon he was fast asleep.
Scratch, scratch sniff sniff scratch scratch sniff sniff came a sound and Bones was awake. He looked all around and saw nothing but the tall reeds and grasses and soft moss of his waterside home. Scratch sniff there it was again and this time it was closer! Bones was out in the open on the mossy hill and he was very afraid. He wanted to run but he wanted to stay still also. He could not see the thing so he chose to run and hope it did not see him. He ran down the hill and crawled under a few dead leaves that were under a rotten log where he wedged himself between a low spot in the log and the ground where he became very still and waited. Seconds later black foot with sharp claws stepped on his mossy hill on the exact spot where he had been sleeping only moments before! The foot was attached to an animal that bones’ little voice said was even more dangerous than the Bear—it was Raccoon! Raccoon stuck its masked face down to the mossy hill and sniffed again and again and made a strange chortling sound. Did it smell him? It sniffed again and again and then it stuck its nose only inches from Bones’ head and sniffed. It then started to dig rapidly in the leaves under the other end of the log with its front paws! The ground was shaking but Bones didn’t move and then the Raccoon sat up with something in its mouth. Bones looked closer and saw that the Raccoon had a caught a large frog and was eating it. Bones saw the Raccoons sharp teeth and felt lucky that it wasn’t him in the Raccoons mouth—-so he stayed very still and soon it moved off and was gone. Bones felt tired and drifted off to sleep under the log and slept for several days.
Part 3. The Torrent!
He was awakened by a loud rumbling sound from the sky accompanied by a bright flash. The rumblings continued for what seemed like along time then all was very quiet…even the birds stopped singing and there was no wind at all. Bones smelled something new; it was a good smell, a wet smell and smell of water, a smell of life. Then there was a sound like a whisper and the rain began to fall all around. It was soft at first but then became harder falling from the sky in torrents that obscured all vision. Bones could not see out from his hidey-hole or even to the top of the mossy hill. He wasn’t scared at all and in fact he was very happy and he didn’t know why. He crawled up out of his hole, stood tall on his little feet and stretched his neck out as far as it would go and opened his mouth. The rain poured down and ran into his mouth and he took a long drink of the cool fresh water. He stood beside the log in the warm rain for a long time and was almost asleep when he was suddenly awakened by a rushing and gurgling sound. Suddenly from out of the grass to the North came a huge wave of water--it was a flash flood! It swept Bones off of the mossy hill and sent him tumbling head over tail into the middle of the pond! The current was so strong but Bones still paddled his tiny feet as fast as he could. There were other things in the water that kept bumping into Bones—logs, sticks and other things that had been washed down stream along with the water. Bones was getting tired in the cool water and was losing energy, he stuck his head out of the water and took a deep breath and then was driven down deep in the pond by a blast of water. He became tangled in a water plant and was trying to free himself when a huge mouth closed over him—-he was in the mouth of a Largemouth Bass! It was dark and bumpy and the fishes huge tongue was beginning to push up on the tangled mass of grasses. The little voice inside bones’ head screamed “STOP” so Bones froze as he had done when Raccoon and Bear has come near. The huge tongue moved up and down a few more times then stopped and the fish spit him out thinking he was just a tangled glob of grass. He and the grass tumbled through the water and floated to the surface where Bones gulped in a huge gasp of air then suddenly, Bones and his grass clump was caught in a swift current and swept away. The raging water carried Bones in his tangled mass of grass across the pond and then sucked him down into a deep dark pipe. After a long scary fall he landed with a splash in a raging torrent of water that sucked him under the pond’s dam and spit him out into a rushing creek. The creek quickly carried him downstream for a great distance through the forest and through a dark cave before joining with a larger creek. Bones and his grass clump were then gently washed up on the creek bank in some soft sand. Bones was so exhausted from the wild ride that he just fell asleep in the tangled mass of grass and didn’t wake up until the next morning. During the night Bones had a dream. It was a strange dream where Bear and Raccoon were dancing with Bass as the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled overhead. Nearby his brothers and sisters were sitting on the mossy hill watching in wonderment as Bones was eating the biggest slug they had ever seen…it was so big that it towered over them all and was actually very scary. As Bones ate the giant slug his face started to feel very warm and his siblings started to hiss loudly and then suddenly the dream world vanished and Bones awoke to the warm sun on his face and the gurgling creek only a few feet away.
Part 4: The Long Trek
Bones let the sun warm him for a long while before he even moved. Slowly he freed his legs from the grass and pulled himself out of the tangled mass of weeds. He then realized that he was exposed and in the open on the sandbar at the edge of the creek…and he did not know where he was. Bones was lost. He quickly made his way to the reeds near the waters edge and hid deep inside. He took a deep breath and smelled the air for familiar smells but detected only dampness from the recent flood and many unknown scents. His little voice of instinct then said “go upstream” so that is what he did. Off he went in the direction he had come from. Bones walked for the entire day before stopping to eat a beetle and then hide under a rotten stump for the night. The next morning he walked for a short distance before he came to a place where the creek flowed out of a hole in a high, steep hillside. This must be the cave he passed through on his speedy journey downstream during the flash flood. Bones looked at the hole and he looked at the creek and his little voice told him that it was not possible for such a tiny turtle to follow the water through the hole in the hill. He decided that the only way home was to go up and over the steep hill so up he went. After he had clambered through some thick grass and stopped to eat a snail he stopped in his tracks when he felt a deep rumbling in the earth coming from the west that shook his tiny bones. It wasn’t the sky rumblings that he felt and heard sometimes when it rains—this came up from the ground through his tiny feet and his little voice said DANGER! The rumbling grew quickly stronger and then there was a sudden sound like a great wind--WooooOOOSSSSsshhhh…and all was quiet again. Bones quickly crawled deep under the nearby grass and hid very still. He waited for a few moments and when the danger did not return he felt safe and began to venture out and suddenly rumble RUMBLE Wooosh again! This time it was from the east…WoosSSSSssshhhh…and it was quiet again so Bones hid deeper into the grass. As he lay there listening to the sounds he felt trapped and very afraid by the strange rumbling sound, he felt like he should not move until it was gone. Soon the sun went down and the night creatures began to call and prowl so Bones dug a little deeper into the grass, held very still and soon fell into a light and restless sleep. He was awakened several times during the night by the scary sound but he did not move for the entire night and well into the next day. By mid afternoon of the next day Bones was beginning to get overheated because he was so exposed to the heat of the sun in the small clump of grass. He needed to move but he was afraid of the “thing” that had kept him captive in the grass for so long. His little voice told him over and over “move, move, move or you will die.” Bones knew that he could not go back down the hill because this was the wrong way…his little voice had already told him that this was not the way to his home near the pond. He knew that he must follow the water uphill if he wanted to find the familiar smells and places of his moist mossy home. He slowly made his way out of the grass into the bright sun, there was no more places to hide and no more shade near the top of the hill—only short cropped grass—as if some large herd of grazing animals had eaten it down almost to the ground. Bones felt very exposed, it was so hot and he was so thirsty. As he walked as fast as he could toward the top of the hill he began to feel as if he was cooking in his shell so he opened his mouth and began to pant. Then he wiped his spittle all over his face and front legs and this felt sooo good. It cooled him down so he could think again. RRuuummmbbbbllleeeee WooooosssHHHhhhh went the thing again and this time Bones saw the source of the sound—it was a huge shiny red thing with four black legs and it was moving very fast from the west to the east. It was gone and as bones watched it continued east and disappeared into the far distance. What was this animal? How could it move so fast? Why was it going so fast? Bones didn’t know the answer to any of these questions and he did not care—he just wanted to go home to his pond and its safety. He sat for a moment to make sure on more of the red monsters came and then started walking as fast as he could over the top of the hill. The top was flat and had a black rock on it that stretched as far as he could see from east to west. Bones walked out onto the rock and started across. As he walked his feet began to feel warm…then hot…the sun had cooked the rock for hours making it very hot!! His feet hurt so bad so he stopped walking halfway across the rock, pulled his feet up and rested on the bottom of his shell. This rock would be a good place to warm up if the weather was cooler said Bones’ little voice…if it wasn’t for the big red monsters and the exposed feeling. Bones rubbed some more spittle over his face and legs and felt much cooler. Suddenly from the east he saw something approaching…it was huge and he could feel it rumbling starting! The ground was shaking and the monster was almost upon him so he started to run to the safety of the other side of the rock. The thing was big, black and had a huge thing on its back—almost like his shell—and then WOOOOOSSSHHHHH it passed only inches from Bones almost crushing him with its giant black feet! It was much bigger than the other creature and much longer. A huge wind followed this creature and it grabbed at Bones, lifted him up and hurled him through the air and into the grass on the other side of the rock! He was upside down, stunned and afraid. He lay there for a moment not sure of what had just happened. His little voice told him what to do so he stuck his head and legs way out and twisted his neck up and over and flip—he was upright again! He looked around and discovered that he was on the other side of the rock so of he went across the grass and down the hill into the welcome shade of the bushes. He crawled under some leaves down to the damp soil to cool off for awhile and soon he was fast asleep. A few hours later he awoke with a very dry mouth and his little voice yelling WATER! So he dug out of the leaves and headed downhill through the bushes. He came out of the bushes and almost fell into the stream. He had made it, somehow he had made it. He made his way along the stream bank until he found a shallow spot—he didn’t want to get washed back under the hill again—-and then eased down to the waters edge and walked into the water until he was shell deep in the cool creek. He drank long of the cool, clean water letting it wash over his face and shell. It felt so good on his feet and seemed to give him a new energy. Bones just loved the water.
Part 5. Home again.
As he drank his fill and sat in the cool stream for a few hours Bones began to smell a familiar smell…it was the smell of home. Somewhere far upstream the old log beside the mossy hill was calling to him. It was time to move on toward home so off he went up the creek one step at a time. The creek bottom was sandy and the water was shallow in most places so Bones had no trouble making his way upstream. In a few places the stream deepened into crystal clear holes full of shinny minnows, snails and salamanders. Bones ate several snails and one unlucky big black salamander before continuing onward upstream.
One very hot day Bones found a huge Oak tree whose roots grew in a tangled mass down into the water. Pockets of glorious squishy mud had collected in between the roots and Bones found one that was just the perfect size for a little box turtle so he eased down into the soft mud to escape the hot sun. He stayed in the nice mud for several days until the heat wave ended when a mid afternoon rain shower awakened him from his slumber. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a young crayfish sitting very close to his head! It moved in such a way that made Bones’ stomach growl with hunger so he slowly eased his head out as far as it would go and then SNAP—-he bit the crayfish in half with his sharp little beak! It tasted sooo good after several days without food that he ate the entire creature even though it was a bit crunchy. The meal gave Bones a new energy so he pulled himself out of the thick, wet mud and into the stream to wash off. As the mud washed off of his body Bones began to feel harder drops of rain fall on his back—this brought back a memory of the flood that washed him downstream and into his present location—so he quickly made his way out of the stream and into the nearby forest. He walked along the edge of the stream in the pouring rain following it uphill toward home. A few hours later it began to get dark so Bones found a hollow, rotten log and cautiously crawled inside to take shelter for the night. He could not see in the semi-darkness of the log as his eyes adjusted to the dark so he settled down in a small depression where the log met the ground. His feet felt a tangle of small roots and soil along with what felt like warm, dry grass so he dug into the grass to go to sleep and then suddenly the grass moved! Whatever it was it was not grass and it turned around to see what had tickled its body. In the low light of the rotten log Bones saw the strangest and scariest creature he had ever seen—it was a huge Opossum! Opossum sat there looking around with its beady little black eyes trying to figure out what had disturbed its slumber. It sniffed the air with its round, pink nose then opened its mouth to yawn showing Bones its 50 big, sharp, pointy teeth! The sight of these teeth terrified Bones but he just sat perfectly still in terror. Then the Opossum in its searching put its pink, sweaty foot directly on top of Bones! The weight of the Opossum hurt his shell terribly but it was what saved his life because if the Opossum had discovered Bones it would have surely eaten him in one quick chomp. The Opossum’s foot pressed Bones down through the tangled roots and he fell through the ground with a thump onto his back into the pitch dark of a tunnel in the earth. His little voice shouted “danger—turn over” so he did just that. Seconds later the nose of the Opossum poked through the hole he had just fallen through and began sniffing loudly. Its damp warmth brushed Bones’ head, took another sniff and then the Opossum stuck its giant wet tongue all over Bones head and back—yuck! Then the Opossum started digging trying to reach the tasty morsel it had just discovered! Bones little voice yelled RUN so off he went even though he could not see where he was going. He ran and ran through the tunnel in the dark, hitting the side of the tunnel several times before he finally stopped when he couldn’t hear the sniffing and digging of the Opossum behind him and then he dug himself into a small pile of dirt and fell asleep.
What seemed like several hours or possibly days later he awakened in the dark, buried in dirt and he was cold, his stomach hurt and his little voice said “get warm or die!” Bones just had to get to the surface and sit in the warm sun so his big meal of crayfish would be able to digest so he dug himself out of the dirt and sat there in the dark for awhile trying to figure out which way to go in the blackness. Soon he started walking through the dark tunnel in the earth. It twisted and turned around rocks and over roots and Bones kept bumping into the walls and tripping over things he could not see. After what seemed like hours of walking in the dark and running into things Bones saw light! It was very faint but it was still light so Bones quickened his pace in the old root tunnel and the closer he came to the light the better he could see things around him—roots hung down from above and rocks stuck out of the walls in some places and on the walls of the tunnel there were huge Crickets about half the size of Bones! The crickets waved their feelers in the air trying to make sense of the strange surface dweller who had invaded their home. Soon Bones came to the source of the light—a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel that led up and out of the tunnel! Bones looked up and saw the sky through the canopy of leaves above and he could smell the forest and nearby creek. He wanted to climb to safety as fast as his little turtle legs could carry him but he remembered his close call with Opossum so he waited and listened for a time then when he felt it was safe he slowly and quietly climbed up through the hole to the surface at last and into the bright sun. He sat half in and half out of the hole checking the surrounding area for Opossum or any other danger that might be nearby. As he sat very still in the sun he could feel the energy returning to his body and his stomach ache soon went away and he felt like himself again. Finally he felt that it was safe to move so he started walking toward the smell of the creek that was coming through the thick Rhododendrons in front of him. Once he made it to the creek he walked into the water and walked straight in and totally submerged himself in the cool clean water. He sat there for several hours until he felt “just right” then made his way back to the creek bank where he dug down into some thick reeds for the night.
Bones awoke and felt a cool chill in the air—his first fall was upon him. He was so cool he could not move right away so he waited until the sun warmed his patch of reeds and his tiny body before moving on. Deep inside his little voice was saying “get home, get home” so he spent the next few days walking as fast as he could upstream following the scent of home as it became stronger and stronger until one day everything looked and smelled just right--Bones was home.
Bones spent the next few months living in the area of the mossy hill, the rotten log and the deep moss of the waters edge. He had a daily routine of warming in the sun, hunting for yummy slugs and other food like tiny insects and spiders, snails, tadpoles and fish. He would take shelter under the log or in the deep moss at night and soak in the shallow water by the ponds edge when he needed a soak. Bones only seldom encountered his siblings in their constant search for food, water and shelter. They were so small and the world was so big and tiny turtles do not move very fast or very far--but life was good.
Part 6. Strange Visitors.
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
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Part 1. Day One.
Bones the tiny turtle used all his strength to pull himself out of the leathery egg where he had spent the last few months becoming a turtle and he was tired, hungry and anxious. He wanted to see the sun and to feed but he knew that he must wait—he must wait for the rain. He was underground in the nest chamber with his 5 siblings who had also just hatched out of their eggs. They all waited and rested together for what seemed like a very long time. Then it began to rain. It rained very hard for a few hours and soaked the soil above the nest. Water seeped into the nest chamber from above and dripped onto the tiny leathery, turtle shells and they all drank their fill of their first drink of water. The rain also softened the soil so the tiny turtles could dig their way to the surface so they did. They pushed and clawed at the soil, stepping on each others backs and heads and soon out they came into the bright late afternoon sun. They emerged into a small clearing in the forest where many different kinds of grasses and herbs grew in abundance. All around them there were curling wisps of water vapor rising up from the freshly soaked soil and plants around them. Gigantic trees stood nearby with thick undergrowth that looked very frightening to such tiny animals. Nearby the tiny turtles saw a pond who’s waters shimmered as blue as the sky and all around the pond was thick vegetation of all kinds that looked safe and inviting. Off the tiny turtles went crawling back and forth in all directions through the tall grasses toward the pond. Suddenly a dark shadow passed across the sun, there was a flurry of feathers and in an instant one of the tiny turtles was forever gone--a large black bird with a chisel-like beak and huge shiny eye had eaten it for breakfast! Bones and the remaining hatchlings were afraid for their lives and ran as fast as they could (and that’s not very fast) toward the safety of the mosses near the waters edge. Once they were there they vanished into the thick grasses and mosses and stayed very still for a very long time.
Part 2. A New World.
The first night for Bones was very scary because he could not see—he was not afraid of the dark but he was afraid of what hungry creatures may lurk about in the dark. Something deep inside told him that he should dig himself as deep as he could into the thickest vegetation that he could find and then dig down into the damp moss until he was almost totally covered up so he did. He was so small and his shell was a greenish-black color and if he did not move he was almost invisible, camouflaged and safe from predators as he drifted off to sleep.
Splash splash SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!!! And Bones was fast awake! What was making that sound? Something was coming closer through the water and it was still dark so Bones could not see what it was! SPLASH! Snnnnoooorrrtttt! And Bones felt hot damp breath above him but he could not see that it was a massive Black Bear! It was foraging along the edge of the pond looking for anything it could eat and baby turtles were always on its menu. The huge animal smelled strange and powerful and to Bones it was a scary smell—-a smell that his instinct told him was pure danger. Bones did not move or breathe. Drool from the bears mouth dripped onto Bones’s back and ran down onto his tiny feet and he still did not move. The bear snorted again and then moved off along the shore of the pond and was gone as fast as it had come. Bear was a smell that he would always remember.
The first rays of the morning sun woke Bones with their welcoming warmth. He felt cold but his little inner voice told him to warm up so he could move fast enough to catch food and evade predators. Bones listened for a time and heard nothing but the strange and wonderful sounds of frogs and birds so he slowly stuck his neck out as far as it would go until he could see out of his hidey-hole. He looked all around for a good while and then seeing nothing scary he pulled himself out of his mossy hiding place and stopped on the top of a small hump of soft Sphagnum moss. He slowly turned his body toward the sun like a solar panel so he could collect as much warmth as possible. Bones is a reptile and reptiles are cold blooded which means that their body temperature is the same as their surroundings so for Bones to be ready to hunt for food he would have to warm up to “turtle temperature.” After awhile Bones began to feel warm and full of energy…then he started to feel VERY hungry! It is no wonder that he was hungry—Bones had never eaten before so off he went in search of food. Smack! Bones turned a corner around a small tree and ran into a gray, slimy thing…eeeoooowwww…it was sticky and slimy but…sniffff…sniffff…when Bones stuck his nose on it and smelled it...sniffffff…it smelled GREAT! Oooooo it just moved…and it moved again and in just the right way that said FOOD! Bones instinct was telling him to eat it so he did. He stretched his neck out, opened his tiny mouth and SNAP took a bite. The thing tasted juicy and good and the slime helped it go down easy so he ate every bit of it. His first meal was sooo good so it was then and there that Bones decided that he loved to eat slug. After his first meal he began to feel another craving—he was drawn to the water—why he did not understand but he followed his instinct again and went to the waters edge. He walked down the moss into the calm shallow water and drank his fill. It felt good going down and it felt good all around as it washed over his tiny body cleaning off the slug juice, dirt and bear drool. Bones sat in the water for awhile and decided that he loved the way it felt on his scaly skin. He drank some more then walked back up onto the mossy hill to sit in the sun some more and soon he was fast asleep.
Scratch, scratch sniff sniff scratch scratch sniff sniff came a sound and Bones was awake. He looked all around and saw nothing but the tall reeds and grasses and soft moss of his waterside home. Scratch sniff there it was again and this time it was closer! Bones was out in the open on the mossy hill and he was very afraid. He wanted to run but he wanted to stay still also. He could not see the thing so he chose to run and hope it did not see him. He ran down the hill and crawled under a few dead leaves that were under a rotten log where he wedged himself between a low spot in the log and the ground where he became very still and waited. Seconds later black foot with sharp claws stepped on his mossy hill on the exact spot where he had been sleeping only moments before! The foot was attached to an animal that bones’ little voice said was even more dangerous than the Bear—it was Raccoon! Raccoon stuck its masked face down to the mossy hill and sniffed again and again and made a strange chortling sound. Did it smell him? It sniffed again and again and then it stuck its nose only inches from Bones’ head and sniffed. It then started to dig rapidly in the leaves under the other end of the log with its front paws! The ground was shaking but Bones didn’t move and then the Raccoon sat up with something in its mouth. Bones looked closer and saw that the Raccoon had a caught a large frog and was eating it. Bones saw the Raccoons sharp teeth and felt lucky that it wasn’t him in the Raccoons mouth—-so he stayed very still and soon it moved off and was gone. Bones felt tired and drifted off to sleep under the log and slept for several days.
Part 3. The Torrent!
He was awakened by a loud rumbling sound from the sky accompanied by a bright flash. The rumblings continued for what seemed like along time then all was very quiet…even the birds stopped singing and there was no wind at all. Bones smelled something new; it was a good smell, a wet smell and smell of water, a smell of life. Then there was a sound like a whisper and the rain began to fall all around. It was soft at first but then became harder falling from the sky in torrents that obscured all vision. Bones could not see out from his hidey-hole or even to the top of the mossy hill. He wasn’t scared at all and in fact he was very happy and he didn’t know why. He crawled up out of his hole, stood tall on his little feet and stretched his neck out as far as it would go and opened his mouth. The rain poured down and ran into his mouth and he took a long drink of the cool fresh water. He stood beside the log in the warm rain for a long time and was almost asleep when he was suddenly awakened by a rushing and gurgling sound. Suddenly from out of the grass to the North came a huge wave of water--it was a flash flood! It swept Bones off of the mossy hill and sent him tumbling head over tail into the middle of the pond! The current was so strong but Bones still paddled his tiny feet as fast as he could. There were other things in the water that kept bumping into Bones—logs, sticks and other things that had been washed down stream along with the water. Bones was getting tired in the cool water and was losing energy, he stuck his head out of the water and took a deep breath and then was driven down deep in the pond by a blast of water. He became tangled in a water plant and was trying to free himself when a huge mouth closed over him—-he was in the mouth of a Largemouth Bass! It was dark and bumpy and the fishes huge tongue was beginning to push up on the tangled mass of grasses. The little voice inside bones’ head screamed “STOP” so Bones froze as he had done when Raccoon and Bear has come near. The huge tongue moved up and down a few more times then stopped and the fish spit him out thinking he was just a tangled glob of grass. He and the grass tumbled through the water and floated to the surface where Bones gulped in a huge gasp of air then suddenly, Bones and his grass clump was caught in a swift current and swept away. The raging water carried Bones in his tangled mass of grass across the pond and then sucked him down into a deep dark pipe. After a long scary fall he landed with a splash in a raging torrent of water that sucked him under the pond’s dam and spit him out into a rushing creek. The creek quickly carried him downstream for a great distance through the forest and through a dark cave before joining with a larger creek. Bones and his grass clump were then gently washed up on the creek bank in some soft sand. Bones was so exhausted from the wild ride that he just fell asleep in the tangled mass of grass and didn’t wake up until the next morning. During the night Bones had a dream. It was a strange dream where Bear and Raccoon were dancing with Bass as the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled overhead. Nearby his brothers and sisters were sitting on the mossy hill watching in wonderment as Bones was eating the biggest slug they had ever seen…it was so big that it towered over them all and was actually very scary. As Bones ate the giant slug his face started to feel very warm and his siblings started to hiss loudly and then suddenly the dream world vanished and Bones awoke to the warm sun on his face and the gurgling creek only a few feet away.
Part 4: The Long Trek
Bones let the sun warm him for a long while before he even moved. Slowly he freed his legs from the grass and pulled himself out of the tangled mass of weeds. He then realized that he was exposed and in the open on the sandbar at the edge of the creek…and he did not know where he was. Bones was lost. He quickly made his way to the reeds near the waters edge and hid deep inside. He took a deep breath and smelled the air for familiar smells but detected only dampness from the recent flood and many unknown scents. His little voice of instinct then said “go upstream” so that is what he did. Off he went in the direction he had come from. Bones walked for the entire day before stopping to eat a beetle and then hide under a rotten stump for the night. The next morning he walked for a short distance before he came to a place where the creek flowed out of a hole in a high, steep hillside. This must be the cave he passed through on his speedy journey downstream during the flash flood. Bones looked at the hole and he looked at the creek and his little voice told him that it was not possible for such a tiny turtle to follow the water through the hole in the hill. He decided that the only way home was to go up and over the steep hill so up he went. After he had clambered through some thick grass and stopped to eat a snail he stopped in his tracks when he felt a deep rumbling in the earth coming from the west that shook his tiny bones. It wasn’t the sky rumblings that he felt and heard sometimes when it rains—this came up from the ground through his tiny feet and his little voice said DANGER! The rumbling grew quickly stronger and then there was a sudden sound like a great wind--WooooOOOSSSSsshhhh…and all was quiet again. Bones quickly crawled deep under the nearby grass and hid very still. He waited for a few moments and when the danger did not return he felt safe and began to venture out and suddenly rumble RUMBLE Wooosh again! This time it was from the east…WoosSSSSssshhhh…and it was quiet again so Bones hid deeper into the grass. As he lay there listening to the sounds he felt trapped and very afraid by the strange rumbling sound, he felt like he should not move until it was gone. Soon the sun went down and the night creatures began to call and prowl so Bones dug a little deeper into the grass, held very still and soon fell into a light and restless sleep. He was awakened several times during the night by the scary sound but he did not move for the entire night and well into the next day. By mid afternoon of the next day Bones was beginning to get overheated because he was so exposed to the heat of the sun in the small clump of grass. He needed to move but he was afraid of the “thing” that had kept him captive in the grass for so long. His little voice told him over and over “move, move, move or you will die.” Bones knew that he could not go back down the hill because this was the wrong way…his little voice had already told him that this was not the way to his home near the pond. He knew that he must follow the water uphill if he wanted to find the familiar smells and places of his moist mossy home. He slowly made his way out of the grass into the bright sun, there was no more places to hide and no more shade near the top of the hill—only short cropped grass—as if some large herd of grazing animals had eaten it down almost to the ground. Bones felt very exposed, it was so hot and he was so thirsty. As he walked as fast as he could toward the top of the hill he began to feel as if he was cooking in his shell so he opened his mouth and began to pant. Then he wiped his spittle all over his face and front legs and this felt sooo good. It cooled him down so he could think again. RRuuummmbbbbllleeeee WooooosssHHHhhhh went the thing again and this time Bones saw the source of the sound—it was a huge shiny red thing with four black legs and it was moving very fast from the west to the east. It was gone and as bones watched it continued east and disappeared into the far distance. What was this animal? How could it move so fast? Why was it going so fast? Bones didn’t know the answer to any of these questions and he did not care—he just wanted to go home to his pond and its safety. He sat for a moment to make sure on more of the red monsters came and then started walking as fast as he could over the top of the hill. The top was flat and had a black rock on it that stretched as far as he could see from east to west. Bones walked out onto the rock and started across. As he walked his feet began to feel warm…then hot…the sun had cooked the rock for hours making it very hot!! His feet hurt so bad so he stopped walking halfway across the rock, pulled his feet up and rested on the bottom of his shell. This rock would be a good place to warm up if the weather was cooler said Bones’ little voice…if it wasn’t for the big red monsters and the exposed feeling. Bones rubbed some more spittle over his face and legs and felt much cooler. Suddenly from the east he saw something approaching…it was huge and he could feel it rumbling starting! The ground was shaking and the monster was almost upon him so he started to run to the safety of the other side of the rock. The thing was big, black and had a huge thing on its back—almost like his shell—and then WOOOOOSSSHHHHH it passed only inches from Bones almost crushing him with its giant black feet! It was much bigger than the other creature and much longer. A huge wind followed this creature and it grabbed at Bones, lifted him up and hurled him through the air and into the grass on the other side of the rock! He was upside down, stunned and afraid. He lay there for a moment not sure of what had just happened. His little voice told him what to do so he stuck his head and legs way out and twisted his neck up and over and flip—he was upright again! He looked around and discovered that he was on the other side of the rock so of he went across the grass and down the hill into the welcome shade of the bushes. He crawled under some leaves down to the damp soil to cool off for awhile and soon he was fast asleep. A few hours later he awoke with a very dry mouth and his little voice yelling WATER! So he dug out of the leaves and headed downhill through the bushes. He came out of the bushes and almost fell into the stream. He had made it, somehow he had made it. He made his way along the stream bank until he found a shallow spot—he didn’t want to get washed back under the hill again—-and then eased down to the waters edge and walked into the water until he was shell deep in the cool creek. He drank long of the cool, clean water letting it wash over his face and shell. It felt so good on his feet and seemed to give him a new energy. Bones just loved the water.
Part 5. Home again.
As he drank his fill and sat in the cool stream for a few hours Bones began to smell a familiar smell…it was the smell of home. Somewhere far upstream the old log beside the mossy hill was calling to him. It was time to move on toward home so off he went up the creek one step at a time. The creek bottom was sandy and the water was shallow in most places so Bones had no trouble making his way upstream. In a few places the stream deepened into crystal clear holes full of shinny minnows, snails and salamanders. Bones ate several snails and one unlucky big black salamander before continuing onward upstream.
One very hot day Bones found a huge Oak tree whose roots grew in a tangled mass down into the water. Pockets of glorious squishy mud had collected in between the roots and Bones found one that was just the perfect size for a little box turtle so he eased down into the soft mud to escape the hot sun. He stayed in the nice mud for several days until the heat wave ended when a mid afternoon rain shower awakened him from his slumber. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a young crayfish sitting very close to his head! It moved in such a way that made Bones’ stomach growl with hunger so he slowly eased his head out as far as it would go and then SNAP—-he bit the crayfish in half with his sharp little beak! It tasted sooo good after several days without food that he ate the entire creature even though it was a bit crunchy. The meal gave Bones a new energy so he pulled himself out of the thick, wet mud and into the stream to wash off. As the mud washed off of his body Bones began to feel harder drops of rain fall on his back—this brought back a memory of the flood that washed him downstream and into his present location—so he quickly made his way out of the stream and into the nearby forest. He walked along the edge of the stream in the pouring rain following it uphill toward home. A few hours later it began to get dark so Bones found a hollow, rotten log and cautiously crawled inside to take shelter for the night. He could not see in the semi-darkness of the log as his eyes adjusted to the dark so he settled down in a small depression where the log met the ground. His feet felt a tangle of small roots and soil along with what felt like warm, dry grass so he dug into the grass to go to sleep and then suddenly the grass moved! Whatever it was it was not grass and it turned around to see what had tickled its body. In the low light of the rotten log Bones saw the strangest and scariest creature he had ever seen—it was a huge Opossum! Opossum sat there looking around with its beady little black eyes trying to figure out what had disturbed its slumber. It sniffed the air with its round, pink nose then opened its mouth to yawn showing Bones its 50 big, sharp, pointy teeth! The sight of these teeth terrified Bones but he just sat perfectly still in terror. Then the Opossum in its searching put its pink, sweaty foot directly on top of Bones! The weight of the Opossum hurt his shell terribly but it was what saved his life because if the Opossum had discovered Bones it would have surely eaten him in one quick chomp. The Opossum’s foot pressed Bones down through the tangled roots and he fell through the ground with a thump onto his back into the pitch dark of a tunnel in the earth. His little voice shouted “danger—turn over” so he did just that. Seconds later the nose of the Opossum poked through the hole he had just fallen through and began sniffing loudly. Its damp warmth brushed Bones’ head, took another sniff and then the Opossum stuck its giant wet tongue all over Bones head and back—yuck! Then the Opossum started digging trying to reach the tasty morsel it had just discovered! Bones little voice yelled RUN so off he went even though he could not see where he was going. He ran and ran through the tunnel in the dark, hitting the side of the tunnel several times before he finally stopped when he couldn’t hear the sniffing and digging of the Opossum behind him and then he dug himself into a small pile of dirt and fell asleep.
What seemed like several hours or possibly days later he awakened in the dark, buried in dirt and he was cold, his stomach hurt and his little voice said “get warm or die!” Bones just had to get to the surface and sit in the warm sun so his big meal of crayfish would be able to digest so he dug himself out of the dirt and sat there in the dark for awhile trying to figure out which way to go in the blackness. Soon he started walking through the dark tunnel in the earth. It twisted and turned around rocks and over roots and Bones kept bumping into the walls and tripping over things he could not see. After what seemed like hours of walking in the dark and running into things Bones saw light! It was very faint but it was still light so Bones quickened his pace in the old root tunnel and the closer he came to the light the better he could see things around him—roots hung down from above and rocks stuck out of the walls in some places and on the walls of the tunnel there were huge Crickets about half the size of Bones! The crickets waved their feelers in the air trying to make sense of the strange surface dweller who had invaded their home. Soon Bones came to the source of the light—a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel that led up and out of the tunnel! Bones looked up and saw the sky through the canopy of leaves above and he could smell the forest and nearby creek. He wanted to climb to safety as fast as his little turtle legs could carry him but he remembered his close call with Opossum so he waited and listened for a time then when he felt it was safe he slowly and quietly climbed up through the hole to the surface at last and into the bright sun. He sat half in and half out of the hole checking the surrounding area for Opossum or any other danger that might be nearby. As he sat very still in the sun he could feel the energy returning to his body and his stomach ache soon went away and he felt like himself again. Finally he felt that it was safe to move so he started walking toward the smell of the creek that was coming through the thick Rhododendrons in front of him. Once he made it to the creek he walked into the water and walked straight in and totally submerged himself in the cool clean water. He sat there for several hours until he felt “just right” then made his way back to the creek bank where he dug down into some thick reeds for the night.
Bones awoke and felt a cool chill in the air—his first fall was upon him. He was so cool he could not move right away so he waited until the sun warmed his patch of reeds and his tiny body before moving on. Deep inside his little voice was saying “get home, get home” so he spent the next few days walking as fast as he could upstream following the scent of home as it became stronger and stronger until one day everything looked and smelled just right--Bones was home.
Bones spent the next few months living in the area of the mossy hill, the rotten log and the deep moss of the waters edge. He had a daily routine of warming in the sun, hunting for yummy slugs and other food like tiny insects and spiders, snails, tadpoles and fish. He would take shelter under the log or in the deep moss at night and soak in the shallow water by the ponds edge when he needed a soak. Bones only seldom encountered his siblings in their constant search for food, water and shelter. They were so small and the world was so big and tiny turtles do not move very fast or very far--but life was good.
Part 6. Strange Visitors.
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
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Part 2. A New World.
The first night for Bones was very scary because he could not see—he was not afraid of the dark but he was afraid of what hungry creatures may lurk about in the dark. Something deep inside told him that he should dig himself as deep as he could into the thickest vegetation that he could find and then dig down into the damp moss until he was almost totally covered up so he did. He was so small and his shell was a greenish-black color and if he did not move he was almost invisible, camouflaged and safe from predators as he drifted off to sleep.
Splash splash SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!!! And Bones was fast awake! What was making that sound? Something was coming closer through the water and it was still dark so Bones could not see what it was! SPLASH! Snnnnoooorrrtttt! And Bones felt hot damp breath above him but he could not see that it was a massive Black Bear! It was foraging along the edge of the pond looking for anything it could eat and baby turtles were always on its menu. The huge animal smelled strange and powerful and to Bones it was a scary smell—-a smell that his instinct told him was pure danger. Bones did not move or breathe. Drool from the bears mouth dripped onto Bones’s back and ran down onto his tiny feet and he still did not move. The bear snorted again and then moved off along the shore of the pond and was gone as fast as it had come. Bear was a smell that he would always remember.
The first rays of the morning sun woke Bones with their welcoming warmth. He felt cold but his little inner voice told him to warm up so he could move fast enough to catch food and evade predators. Bones listened for a time and heard nothing but the strange and wonderful sounds of frogs and birds so he slowly stuck his neck out as far as it would go until he could see out of his hidey-hole. He looked all around for a good while and then seeing nothing scary he pulled himself out of his mossy hiding place and stopped on the top of a small hump of soft Sphagnum moss. He slowly turned his body toward the sun like a solar panel so he could collect as much warmth as possible. Bones is a reptile and reptiles are cold blooded which means that their body temperature is the same as their surroundings so for Bones to be ready to hunt for food he would have to warm up to “turtle temperature.” After awhile Bones began to feel warm and full of energy…then he started to feel VERY hungry! It is no wonder that he was hungry—Bones had never eaten before so off he went in search of food. Smack! Bones turned a corner around a small tree and ran into a gray, slimy thing…eeeoooowwww…it was sticky and slimy but…sniffff…sniffff…when Bones stuck his nose on it and smelled it...sniffffff…it smelled GREAT! Oooooo it just moved…and it moved again and in just the right way that said FOOD! Bones instinct was telling him to eat it so he did. He stretched his neck out, opened his tiny mouth and SNAP took a bite. The thing tasted juicy and good and the slime helped it go down easy so he ate every bit of it. His first meal was sooo good so it was then and there that Bones decided that he loved to eat slug. After his first meal he began to feel another craving—he was drawn to the water—why he did not understand but he followed his instinct again and went to the waters edge. He walked down the moss into the calm shallow water and drank his fill. It felt good going down and it felt good all around as it washed over his tiny body cleaning off the slug juice, dirt and bear drool. Bones sat in the water for awhile and decided that he loved the way it felt on his scaly skin. He drank some more then walked back up onto the mossy hill to sit in the sun some more and soon he was fast asleep.
Scratch, scratch sniff sniff scratch scratch sniff sniff came a sound and Bones was awake. He looked all around and saw nothing but the tall reeds and grasses and soft moss of his waterside home. Scratch sniff there it was again and this time it was closer! Bones was out in the open on the mossy hill and he was very afraid. He wanted to run but he wanted to stay still also. He could not see the thing so he chose to run and hope it did not see him. He ran down the hill and crawled under a few dead leaves that were under a rotten log where he wedged himself between a low spot in the log and the ground where he became very still and waited. Seconds later black foot with sharp claws stepped on his mossy hill on the exact spot where he had been sleeping only moments before! The foot was attached to an animal that bones’ little voice said was even more dangerous than the Bear—it was Raccoon! Raccoon stuck its masked face down to the mossy hill and sniffed again and again and made a strange chortling sound. Did it smell him? It sniffed again and again and then it stuck its nose only inches from Bones’ head and sniffed. It then started to dig rapidly in the leaves under the other end of the log with its front paws! The ground was shaking but Bones didn’t move and then the Raccoon sat up with something in its mouth. Bones looked closer and saw that the Raccoon had a caught a large frog and was eating it. Bones saw the Raccoons sharp teeth and felt lucky that it wasn’t him in the Raccoons mouth—-so he stayed very still and soon it moved off and was gone. Bones felt tired and drifted off to sleep under the log and slept for several days.
Part 3. The Torrent!
He was awakened by a loud rumbling sound from the sky accompanied by a bright flash. The rumblings continued for what seemed like along time then all was very quiet…even the birds stopped singing and there was no wind at all. Bones smelled something new; it was a good smell, a wet smell and smell of water, a smell of life. Then there was a sound like a whisper and the rain began to fall all around. It was soft at first but then became harder falling from the sky in torrents that obscured all vision. Bones could not see out from his hidey-hole or even to the top of the mossy hill. He wasn’t scared at all and in fact he was very happy and he didn’t know why. He crawled up out of his hole, stood tall on his little feet and stretched his neck out as far as it would go and opened his mouth. The rain poured down and ran into his mouth and he took a long drink of the cool fresh water. He stood beside the log in the warm rain for a long time and was almost asleep when he was suddenly awakened by a rushing and gurgling sound. Suddenly from out of the grass to the North came a huge wave of water--it was a flash flood! It swept Bones off of the mossy hill and sent him tumbling head over tail into the middle of the pond! The current was so strong but Bones still paddled his tiny feet as fast as he could. There were other things in the water that kept bumping into Bones—logs, sticks and other things that had been washed down stream along with the water. Bones was getting tired in the cool water and was losing energy, he stuck his head out of the water and took a deep breath and then was driven down deep in the pond by a blast of water. He became tangled in a water plant and was trying to free himself when a huge mouth closed over him—-he was in the mouth of a Largemouth Bass! It was dark and bumpy and the fishes huge tongue was beginning to push up on the tangled mass of grasses. The little voice inside bones’ head screamed “STOP” so Bones froze as he had done when Raccoon and Bear has come near. The huge tongue moved up and down a few more times then stopped and the fish spit him out thinking he was just a tangled glob of grass. He and the grass tumbled through the water and floated to the surface where Bones gulped in a huge gasp of air then suddenly, Bones and his grass clump was caught in a swift current and swept away. The raging water carried Bones in his tangled mass of grass across the pond and then sucked him down into a deep dark pipe. After a long scary fall he landed with a splash in a raging torrent of water that sucked him under the pond’s dam and spit him out into a rushing creek. The creek quickly carried him downstream for a great distance through the forest and through a dark cave before joining with a larger creek. Bones and his grass clump were then gently washed up on the creek bank in some soft sand. Bones was so exhausted from the wild ride that he just fell asleep in the tangled mass of grass and didn’t wake up until the next morning. During the night Bones had a dream. It was a strange dream where Bear and Raccoon were dancing with Bass as the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled overhead. Nearby his brothers and sisters were sitting on the mossy hill watching in wonderment as Bones was eating the biggest slug they had ever seen…it was so big that it towered over them all and was actually very scary. As Bones ate the giant slug his face started to feel very warm and his siblings started to hiss loudly and then suddenly the dream world vanished and Bones awoke to the warm sun on his face and the gurgling creek only a few feet away.
Part 4: The Long Trek
Bones let the sun warm him for a long while before he even moved. Slowly he freed his legs from the grass and pulled himself out of the tangled mass of weeds. He then realized that he was exposed and in the open on the sandbar at the edge of the creek…and he did not know where he was. Bones was lost. He quickly made his way to the reeds near the waters edge and hid deep inside. He took a deep breath and smelled the air for familiar smells but detected only dampness from the recent flood and many unknown scents. His little voice of instinct then said “go upstream” so that is what he did. Off he went in the direction he had come from. Bones walked for the entire day before stopping to eat a beetle and then hide under a rotten stump for the night. The next morning he walked for a short distance before he came to a place where the creek flowed out of a hole in a high, steep hillside. This must be the cave he passed through on his speedy journey downstream during the flash flood. Bones looked at the hole and he looked at the creek and his little voice told him that it was not possible for such a tiny turtle to follow the water through the hole in the hill. He decided that the only way home was to go up and over the steep hill so up he went. After he had clambered through some thick grass and stopped to eat a snail he stopped in his tracks when he felt a deep rumbling in the earth coming from the west that shook his tiny bones. It wasn’t the sky rumblings that he felt and heard sometimes when it rains—this came up from the ground through his tiny feet and his little voice said DANGER! The rumbling grew quickly stronger and then there was a sudden sound like a great wind--WooooOOOSSSSsshhhh…and all was quiet again. Bones quickly crawled deep under the nearby grass and hid very still. He waited for a few moments and when the danger did not return he felt safe and began to venture out and suddenly rumble RUMBLE Wooosh again! This time it was from the east…WoosSSSSssshhhh…and it was quiet again so Bones hid deeper into the grass. As he lay there listening to the sounds he felt trapped and very afraid by the strange rumbling sound, he felt like he should not move until it was gone. Soon the sun went down and the night creatures began to call and prowl so Bones dug a little deeper into the grass, held very still and soon fell into a light and restless sleep. He was awakened several times during the night by the scary sound but he did not move for the entire night and well into the next day. By mid afternoon of the next day Bones was beginning to get overheated because he was so exposed to the heat of the sun in the small clump of grass. He needed to move but he was afraid of the “thing” that had kept him captive in the grass for so long. His little voice told him over and over “move, move, move or you will die.” Bones knew that he could not go back down the hill because this was the wrong way…his little voice had already told him that this was not the way to his home near the pond. He knew that he must follow the water uphill if he wanted to find the familiar smells and places of his moist mossy home. He slowly made his way out of the grass into the bright sun, there was no more places to hide and no more shade near the top of the hill—only short cropped grass—as if some large herd of grazing animals had eaten it down almost to the ground. Bones felt very exposed, it was so hot and he was so thirsty. As he walked as fast as he could toward the top of the hill he began to feel as if he was cooking in his shell so he opened his mouth and began to pant. Then he wiped his spittle all over his face and front legs and this felt sooo good. It cooled him down so he could think again. RRuuummmbbbbllleeeee WooooosssHHHhhhh went the thing again and this time Bones saw the source of the sound—it was a huge shiny red thing with four black legs and it was moving very fast from the west to the east. It was gone and as bones watched it continued east and disappeared into the far distance. What was this animal? How could it move so fast? Why was it going so fast? Bones didn’t know the answer to any of these questions and he did not care—he just wanted to go home to his pond and its safety. He sat for a moment to make sure on more of the red monsters came and then started walking as fast as he could over the top of the hill. The top was flat and had a black rock on it that stretched as far as he could see from east to west. Bones walked out onto the rock and started across. As he walked his feet began to feel warm…then hot…the sun had cooked the rock for hours making it very hot!! His feet hurt so bad so he stopped walking halfway across the rock, pulled his feet up and rested on the bottom of his shell. This rock would be a good place to warm up if the weather was cooler said Bones’ little voice…if it wasn’t for the big red monsters and the exposed feeling. Bones rubbed some more spittle over his face and legs and felt much cooler. Suddenly from the east he saw something approaching…it was huge and he could feel it rumbling starting! The ground was shaking and the monster was almost upon him so he started to run to the safety of the other side of the rock. The thing was big, black and had a huge thing on its back—almost like his shell—and then WOOOOOSSSHHHHH it passed only inches from Bones almost crushing him with its giant black feet! It was much bigger than the other creature and much longer. A huge wind followed this creature and it grabbed at Bones, lifted him up and hurled him through the air and into the grass on the other side of the rock! He was upside down, stunned and afraid. He lay there for a moment not sure of what had just happened. His little voice told him what to do so he stuck his head and legs way out and twisted his neck up and over and flip—he was upright again! He looked around and discovered that he was on the other side of the rock so of he went across the grass and down the hill into the welcome shade of the bushes. He crawled under some leaves down to the damp soil to cool off for awhile and soon he was fast asleep. A few hours later he awoke with a very dry mouth and his little voice yelling WATER! So he dug out of the leaves and headed downhill through the bushes. He came out of the bushes and almost fell into the stream. He had made it, somehow he had made it. He made his way along the stream bank until he found a shallow spot—he didn’t want to get washed back under the hill again—-and then eased down to the waters edge and walked into the water until he was shell deep in the cool creek. He drank long of the cool, clean water letting it wash over his face and shell. It felt so good on his feet and seemed to give him a new energy. Bones just loved the water.
Part 5. Home again.
As he drank his fill and sat in the cool stream for a few hours Bones began to smell a familiar smell…it was the smell of home. Somewhere far upstream the old log beside the mossy hill was calling to him. It was time to move on toward home so off he went up the creek one step at a time. The creek bottom was sandy and the water was shallow in most places so Bones had no trouble making his way upstream. In a few places the stream deepened into crystal clear holes full of shinny minnows, snails and salamanders. Bones ate several snails and one unlucky big black salamander before continuing onward upstream.
One very hot day Bones found a huge Oak tree whose roots grew in a tangled mass down into the water. Pockets of glorious squishy mud had collected in between the roots and Bones found one that was just the perfect size for a little box turtle so he eased down into the soft mud to escape the hot sun. He stayed in the nice mud for several days until the heat wave ended when a mid afternoon rain shower awakened him from his slumber. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a young crayfish sitting very close to his head! It moved in such a way that made Bones’ stomach growl with hunger so he slowly eased his head out as far as it would go and then SNAP—-he bit the crayfish in half with his sharp little beak! It tasted sooo good after several days without food that he ate the entire creature even though it was a bit crunchy. The meal gave Bones a new energy so he pulled himself out of the thick, wet mud and into the stream to wash off. As the mud washed off of his body Bones began to feel harder drops of rain fall on his back—this brought back a memory of the flood that washed him downstream and into his present location—so he quickly made his way out of the stream and into the nearby forest. He walked along the edge of the stream in the pouring rain following it uphill toward home. A few hours later it began to get dark so Bones found a hollow, rotten log and cautiously crawled inside to take shelter for the night. He could not see in the semi-darkness of the log as his eyes adjusted to the dark so he settled down in a small depression where the log met the ground. His feet felt a tangle of small roots and soil along with what felt like warm, dry grass so he dug into the grass to go to sleep and then suddenly the grass moved! Whatever it was it was not grass and it turned around to see what had tickled its body. In the low light of the rotten log Bones saw the strangest and scariest creature he had ever seen—it was a huge Opossum! Opossum sat there looking around with its beady little black eyes trying to figure out what had disturbed its slumber. It sniffed the air with its round, pink nose then opened its mouth to yawn showing Bones its 50 big, sharp, pointy teeth! The sight of these teeth terrified Bones but he just sat perfectly still in terror. Then the Opossum in its searching put its pink, sweaty foot directly on top of Bones! The weight of the Opossum hurt his shell terribly but it was what saved his life because if the Opossum had discovered Bones it would have surely eaten him in one quick chomp. The Opossum’s foot pressed Bones down through the tangled roots and he fell through the ground with a thump onto his back into the pitch dark of a tunnel in the earth. His little voice shouted “danger—turn over” so he did just that. Seconds later the nose of the Opossum poked through the hole he had just fallen through and began sniffing loudly. Its damp warmth brushed Bones’ head, took another sniff and then the Opossum stuck its giant wet tongue all over Bones head and back—yuck! Then the Opossum started digging trying to reach the tasty morsel it had just discovered! Bones little voice yelled RUN so off he went even though he could not see where he was going. He ran and ran through the tunnel in the dark, hitting the side of the tunnel several times before he finally stopped when he couldn’t hear the sniffing and digging of the Opossum behind him and then he dug himself into a small pile of dirt and fell asleep.
What seemed like several hours or possibly days later he awakened in the dark, buried in dirt and he was cold, his stomach hurt and his little voice said “get warm or die!” Bones just had to get to the surface and sit in the warm sun so his big meal of crayfish would be able to digest so he dug himself out of the dirt and sat there in the dark for awhile trying to figure out which way to go in the blackness. Soon he started walking through the dark tunnel in the earth. It twisted and turned around rocks and over roots and Bones kept bumping into the walls and tripping over things he could not see. After what seemed like hours of walking in the dark and running into things Bones saw light! It was very faint but it was still light so Bones quickened his pace in the old root tunnel and the closer he came to the light the better he could see things around him—roots hung down from above and rocks stuck out of the walls in some places and on the walls of the tunnel there were huge Crickets about half the size of Bones! The crickets waved their feelers in the air trying to make sense of the strange surface dweller who had invaded their home. Soon Bones came to the source of the light—a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel that led up and out of the tunnel! Bones looked up and saw the sky through the canopy of leaves above and he could smell the forest and nearby creek. He wanted to climb to safety as fast as his little turtle legs could carry him but he remembered his close call with Opossum so he waited and listened for a time then when he felt it was safe he slowly and quietly climbed up through the hole to the surface at last and into the bright sun. He sat half in and half out of the hole checking the surrounding area for Opossum or any other danger that might be nearby. As he sat very still in the sun he could feel the energy returning to his body and his stomach ache soon went away and he felt like himself again. Finally he felt that it was safe to move so he started walking toward the smell of the creek that was coming through the thick Rhododendrons in front of him. Once he made it to the creek he walked into the water and walked straight in and totally submerged himself in the cool clean water. He sat there for several hours until he felt “just right” then made his way back to the creek bank where he dug down into some thick reeds for the night.
Bones awoke and felt a cool chill in the air—his first fall was upon him. He was so cool he could not move right away so he waited until the sun warmed his patch of reeds and his tiny body before moving on. Deep inside his little voice was saying “get home, get home” so he spent the next few days walking as fast as he could upstream following the scent of home as it became stronger and stronger until one day everything looked and smelled just right--Bones was home.
Bones spent the next few months living in the area of the mossy hill, the rotten log and the deep moss of the waters edge. He had a daily routine of warming in the sun, hunting for yummy slugs and other food like tiny insects and spiders, snails, tadpoles and fish. He would take shelter under the log or in the deep moss at night and soak in the shallow water by the ponds edge when he needed a soak. Bones only seldom encountered his siblings in their constant search for food, water and shelter. They were so small and the world was so big and tiny turtles do not move very fast or very far--but life was good.
Part 6. Strange Visitors.
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
CLICK HERE FOR HOMEPAGE
Splash splash SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!!! And Bones was fast awake! What was making that sound? Something was coming closer through the water and it was still dark so Bones could not see what it was! SPLASH! Snnnnoooorrrtttt! And Bones felt hot damp breath above him but he could not see that it was a massive Black Bear! It was foraging along the edge of the pond looking for anything it could eat and baby turtles were always on its menu. The huge animal smelled strange and powerful and to Bones it was a scary smell—-a smell that his instinct told him was pure danger. Bones did not move or breathe. Drool from the bears mouth dripped onto Bones’s back and ran down onto his tiny feet and he still did not move. The bear snorted again and then moved off along the shore of the pond and was gone as fast as it had come. Bear was a smell that he would always remember.
The first rays of the morning sun woke Bones with their welcoming warmth. He felt cold but his little inner voice told him to warm up so he could move fast enough to catch food and evade predators. Bones listened for a time and heard nothing but the strange and wonderful sounds of frogs and birds so he slowly stuck his neck out as far as it would go until he could see out of his hidey-hole. He looked all around for a good while and then seeing nothing scary he pulled himself out of his mossy hiding place and stopped on the top of a small hump of soft Sphagnum moss. He slowly turned his body toward the sun like a solar panel so he could collect as much warmth as possible. Bones is a reptile and reptiles are cold blooded which means that their body temperature is the same as their surroundings so for Bones to be ready to hunt for food he would have to warm up to “turtle temperature.” After awhile Bones began to feel warm and full of energy…then he started to feel VERY hungry! It is no wonder that he was hungry—Bones had never eaten before so off he went in search of food. Smack! Bones turned a corner around a small tree and ran into a gray, slimy thing…eeeoooowwww…it was sticky and slimy but…sniffff…sniffff…when Bones stuck his nose on it and smelled it...sniffffff…it smelled GREAT! Oooooo it just moved…and it moved again and in just the right way that said FOOD! Bones instinct was telling him to eat it so he did. He stretched his neck out, opened his tiny mouth and SNAP took a bite. The thing tasted juicy and good and the slime helped it go down easy so he ate every bit of it. His first meal was sooo good so it was then and there that Bones decided that he loved to eat slug. After his first meal he began to feel another craving—he was drawn to the water—why he did not understand but he followed his instinct again and went to the waters edge. He walked down the moss into the calm shallow water and drank his fill. It felt good going down and it felt good all around as it washed over his tiny body cleaning off the slug juice, dirt and bear drool. Bones sat in the water for awhile and decided that he loved the way it felt on his scaly skin. He drank some more then walked back up onto the mossy hill to sit in the sun some more and soon he was fast asleep.
Scratch, scratch sniff sniff scratch scratch sniff sniff came a sound and Bones was awake. He looked all around and saw nothing but the tall reeds and grasses and soft moss of his waterside home. Scratch sniff there it was again and this time it was closer! Bones was out in the open on the mossy hill and he was very afraid. He wanted to run but he wanted to stay still also. He could not see the thing so he chose to run and hope it did not see him. He ran down the hill and crawled under a few dead leaves that were under a rotten log where he wedged himself between a low spot in the log and the ground where he became very still and waited. Seconds later black foot with sharp claws stepped on his mossy hill on the exact spot where he had been sleeping only moments before! The foot was attached to an animal that bones’ little voice said was even more dangerous than the Bear—it was Raccoon! Raccoon stuck its masked face down to the mossy hill and sniffed again and again and made a strange chortling sound. Did it smell him? It sniffed again and again and then it stuck its nose only inches from Bones’ head and sniffed. It then started to dig rapidly in the leaves under the other end of the log with its front paws! The ground was shaking but Bones didn’t move and then the Raccoon sat up with something in its mouth. Bones looked closer and saw that the Raccoon had a caught a large frog and was eating it. Bones saw the Raccoons sharp teeth and felt lucky that it wasn’t him in the Raccoons mouth—-so he stayed very still and soon it moved off and was gone. Bones felt tired and drifted off to sleep under the log and slept for several days.
Part 3. The Torrent!
He was awakened by a loud rumbling sound from the sky accompanied by a bright flash. The rumblings continued for what seemed like along time then all was very quiet…even the birds stopped singing and there was no wind at all. Bones smelled something new; it was a good smell, a wet smell and smell of water, a smell of life. Then there was a sound like a whisper and the rain began to fall all around. It was soft at first but then became harder falling from the sky in torrents that obscured all vision. Bones could not see out from his hidey-hole or even to the top of the mossy hill. He wasn’t scared at all and in fact he was very happy and he didn’t know why. He crawled up out of his hole, stood tall on his little feet and stretched his neck out as far as it would go and opened his mouth. The rain poured down and ran into his mouth and he took a long drink of the cool fresh water. He stood beside the log in the warm rain for a long time and was almost asleep when he was suddenly awakened by a rushing and gurgling sound. Suddenly from out of the grass to the North came a huge wave of water--it was a flash flood! It swept Bones off of the mossy hill and sent him tumbling head over tail into the middle of the pond! The current was so strong but Bones still paddled his tiny feet as fast as he could. There were other things in the water that kept bumping into Bones—logs, sticks and other things that had been washed down stream along with the water. Bones was getting tired in the cool water and was losing energy, he stuck his head out of the water and took a deep breath and then was driven down deep in the pond by a blast of water. He became tangled in a water plant and was trying to free himself when a huge mouth closed over him—-he was in the mouth of a Largemouth Bass! It was dark and bumpy and the fishes huge tongue was beginning to push up on the tangled mass of grasses. The little voice inside bones’ head screamed “STOP” so Bones froze as he had done when Raccoon and Bear has come near. The huge tongue moved up and down a few more times then stopped and the fish spit him out thinking he was just a tangled glob of grass. He and the grass tumbled through the water and floated to the surface where Bones gulped in a huge gasp of air then suddenly, Bones and his grass clump was caught in a swift current and swept away. The raging water carried Bones in his tangled mass of grass across the pond and then sucked him down into a deep dark pipe. After a long scary fall he landed with a splash in a raging torrent of water that sucked him under the pond’s dam and spit him out into a rushing creek. The creek quickly carried him downstream for a great distance through the forest and through a dark cave before joining with a larger creek. Bones and his grass clump were then gently washed up on the creek bank in some soft sand. Bones was so exhausted from the wild ride that he just fell asleep in the tangled mass of grass and didn’t wake up until the next morning. During the night Bones had a dream. It was a strange dream where Bear and Raccoon were dancing with Bass as the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled overhead. Nearby his brothers and sisters were sitting on the mossy hill watching in wonderment as Bones was eating the biggest slug they had ever seen…it was so big that it towered over them all and was actually very scary. As Bones ate the giant slug his face started to feel very warm and his siblings started to hiss loudly and then suddenly the dream world vanished and Bones awoke to the warm sun on his face and the gurgling creek only a few feet away.
Part 4: The Long Trek
Bones let the sun warm him for a long while before he even moved. Slowly he freed his legs from the grass and pulled himself out of the tangled mass of weeds. He then realized that he was exposed and in the open on the sandbar at the edge of the creek…and he did not know where he was. Bones was lost. He quickly made his way to the reeds near the waters edge and hid deep inside. He took a deep breath and smelled the air for familiar smells but detected only dampness from the recent flood and many unknown scents. His little voice of instinct then said “go upstream” so that is what he did. Off he went in the direction he had come from. Bones walked for the entire day before stopping to eat a beetle and then hide under a rotten stump for the night. The next morning he walked for a short distance before he came to a place where the creek flowed out of a hole in a high, steep hillside. This must be the cave he passed through on his speedy journey downstream during the flash flood. Bones looked at the hole and he looked at the creek and his little voice told him that it was not possible for such a tiny turtle to follow the water through the hole in the hill. He decided that the only way home was to go up and over the steep hill so up he went. After he had clambered through some thick grass and stopped to eat a snail he stopped in his tracks when he felt a deep rumbling in the earth coming from the west that shook his tiny bones. It wasn’t the sky rumblings that he felt and heard sometimes when it rains—this came up from the ground through his tiny feet and his little voice said DANGER! The rumbling grew quickly stronger and then there was a sudden sound like a great wind--WooooOOOSSSSsshhhh…and all was quiet again. Bones quickly crawled deep under the nearby grass and hid very still. He waited for a few moments and when the danger did not return he felt safe and began to venture out and suddenly rumble RUMBLE Wooosh again! This time it was from the east…WoosSSSSssshhhh…and it was quiet again so Bones hid deeper into the grass. As he lay there listening to the sounds he felt trapped and very afraid by the strange rumbling sound, he felt like he should not move until it was gone. Soon the sun went down and the night creatures began to call and prowl so Bones dug a little deeper into the grass, held very still and soon fell into a light and restless sleep. He was awakened several times during the night by the scary sound but he did not move for the entire night and well into the next day. By mid afternoon of the next day Bones was beginning to get overheated because he was so exposed to the heat of the sun in the small clump of grass. He needed to move but he was afraid of the “thing” that had kept him captive in the grass for so long. His little voice told him over and over “move, move, move or you will die.” Bones knew that he could not go back down the hill because this was the wrong way…his little voice had already told him that this was not the way to his home near the pond. He knew that he must follow the water uphill if he wanted to find the familiar smells and places of his moist mossy home. He slowly made his way out of the grass into the bright sun, there was no more places to hide and no more shade near the top of the hill—only short cropped grass—as if some large herd of grazing animals had eaten it down almost to the ground. Bones felt very exposed, it was so hot and he was so thirsty. As he walked as fast as he could toward the top of the hill he began to feel as if he was cooking in his shell so he opened his mouth and began to pant. Then he wiped his spittle all over his face and front legs and this felt sooo good. It cooled him down so he could think again. RRuuummmbbbbllleeeee WooooosssHHHhhhh went the thing again and this time Bones saw the source of the sound—it was a huge shiny red thing with four black legs and it was moving very fast from the west to the east. It was gone and as bones watched it continued east and disappeared into the far distance. What was this animal? How could it move so fast? Why was it going so fast? Bones didn’t know the answer to any of these questions and he did not care—he just wanted to go home to his pond and its safety. He sat for a moment to make sure on more of the red monsters came and then started walking as fast as he could over the top of the hill. The top was flat and had a black rock on it that stretched as far as he could see from east to west. Bones walked out onto the rock and started across. As he walked his feet began to feel warm…then hot…the sun had cooked the rock for hours making it very hot!! His feet hurt so bad so he stopped walking halfway across the rock, pulled his feet up and rested on the bottom of his shell. This rock would be a good place to warm up if the weather was cooler said Bones’ little voice…if it wasn’t for the big red monsters and the exposed feeling. Bones rubbed some more spittle over his face and legs and felt much cooler. Suddenly from the east he saw something approaching…it was huge and he could feel it rumbling starting! The ground was shaking and the monster was almost upon him so he started to run to the safety of the other side of the rock. The thing was big, black and had a huge thing on its back—almost like his shell—and then WOOOOOSSSHHHHH it passed only inches from Bones almost crushing him with its giant black feet! It was much bigger than the other creature and much longer. A huge wind followed this creature and it grabbed at Bones, lifted him up and hurled him through the air and into the grass on the other side of the rock! He was upside down, stunned and afraid. He lay there for a moment not sure of what had just happened. His little voice told him what to do so he stuck his head and legs way out and twisted his neck up and over and flip—he was upright again! He looked around and discovered that he was on the other side of the rock so of he went across the grass and down the hill into the welcome shade of the bushes. He crawled under some leaves down to the damp soil to cool off for awhile and soon he was fast asleep. A few hours later he awoke with a very dry mouth and his little voice yelling WATER! So he dug out of the leaves and headed downhill through the bushes. He came out of the bushes and almost fell into the stream. He had made it, somehow he had made it. He made his way along the stream bank until he found a shallow spot—he didn’t want to get washed back under the hill again—-and then eased down to the waters edge and walked into the water until he was shell deep in the cool creek. He drank long of the cool, clean water letting it wash over his face and shell. It felt so good on his feet and seemed to give him a new energy. Bones just loved the water.
Part 5. Home again.
As he drank his fill and sat in the cool stream for a few hours Bones began to smell a familiar smell…it was the smell of home. Somewhere far upstream the old log beside the mossy hill was calling to him. It was time to move on toward home so off he went up the creek one step at a time. The creek bottom was sandy and the water was shallow in most places so Bones had no trouble making his way upstream. In a few places the stream deepened into crystal clear holes full of shinny minnows, snails and salamanders. Bones ate several snails and one unlucky big black salamander before continuing onward upstream.
One very hot day Bones found a huge Oak tree whose roots grew in a tangled mass down into the water. Pockets of glorious squishy mud had collected in between the roots and Bones found one that was just the perfect size for a little box turtle so he eased down into the soft mud to escape the hot sun. He stayed in the nice mud for several days until the heat wave ended when a mid afternoon rain shower awakened him from his slumber. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a young crayfish sitting very close to his head! It moved in such a way that made Bones’ stomach growl with hunger so he slowly eased his head out as far as it would go and then SNAP—-he bit the crayfish in half with his sharp little beak! It tasted sooo good after several days without food that he ate the entire creature even though it was a bit crunchy. The meal gave Bones a new energy so he pulled himself out of the thick, wet mud and into the stream to wash off. As the mud washed off of his body Bones began to feel harder drops of rain fall on his back—this brought back a memory of the flood that washed him downstream and into his present location—so he quickly made his way out of the stream and into the nearby forest. He walked along the edge of the stream in the pouring rain following it uphill toward home. A few hours later it began to get dark so Bones found a hollow, rotten log and cautiously crawled inside to take shelter for the night. He could not see in the semi-darkness of the log as his eyes adjusted to the dark so he settled down in a small depression where the log met the ground. His feet felt a tangle of small roots and soil along with what felt like warm, dry grass so he dug into the grass to go to sleep and then suddenly the grass moved! Whatever it was it was not grass and it turned around to see what had tickled its body. In the low light of the rotten log Bones saw the strangest and scariest creature he had ever seen—it was a huge Opossum! Opossum sat there looking around with its beady little black eyes trying to figure out what had disturbed its slumber. It sniffed the air with its round, pink nose then opened its mouth to yawn showing Bones its 50 big, sharp, pointy teeth! The sight of these teeth terrified Bones but he just sat perfectly still in terror. Then the Opossum in its searching put its pink, sweaty foot directly on top of Bones! The weight of the Opossum hurt his shell terribly but it was what saved his life because if the Opossum had discovered Bones it would have surely eaten him in one quick chomp. The Opossum’s foot pressed Bones down through the tangled roots and he fell through the ground with a thump onto his back into the pitch dark of a tunnel in the earth. His little voice shouted “danger—turn over” so he did just that. Seconds later the nose of the Opossum poked through the hole he had just fallen through and began sniffing loudly. Its damp warmth brushed Bones’ head, took another sniff and then the Opossum stuck its giant wet tongue all over Bones head and back—yuck! Then the Opossum started digging trying to reach the tasty morsel it had just discovered! Bones little voice yelled RUN so off he went even though he could not see where he was going. He ran and ran through the tunnel in the dark, hitting the side of the tunnel several times before he finally stopped when he couldn’t hear the sniffing and digging of the Opossum behind him and then he dug himself into a small pile of dirt and fell asleep.
What seemed like several hours or possibly days later he awakened in the dark, buried in dirt and he was cold, his stomach hurt and his little voice said “get warm or die!” Bones just had to get to the surface and sit in the warm sun so his big meal of crayfish would be able to digest so he dug himself out of the dirt and sat there in the dark for awhile trying to figure out which way to go in the blackness. Soon he started walking through the dark tunnel in the earth. It twisted and turned around rocks and over roots and Bones kept bumping into the walls and tripping over things he could not see. After what seemed like hours of walking in the dark and running into things Bones saw light! It was very faint but it was still light so Bones quickened his pace in the old root tunnel and the closer he came to the light the better he could see things around him—roots hung down from above and rocks stuck out of the walls in some places and on the walls of the tunnel there were huge Crickets about half the size of Bones! The crickets waved their feelers in the air trying to make sense of the strange surface dweller who had invaded their home. Soon Bones came to the source of the light—a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel that led up and out of the tunnel! Bones looked up and saw the sky through the canopy of leaves above and he could smell the forest and nearby creek. He wanted to climb to safety as fast as his little turtle legs could carry him but he remembered his close call with Opossum so he waited and listened for a time then when he felt it was safe he slowly and quietly climbed up through the hole to the surface at last and into the bright sun. He sat half in and half out of the hole checking the surrounding area for Opossum or any other danger that might be nearby. As he sat very still in the sun he could feel the energy returning to his body and his stomach ache soon went away and he felt like himself again. Finally he felt that it was safe to move so he started walking toward the smell of the creek that was coming through the thick Rhododendrons in front of him. Once he made it to the creek he walked into the water and walked straight in and totally submerged himself in the cool clean water. He sat there for several hours until he felt “just right” then made his way back to the creek bank where he dug down into some thick reeds for the night.
Bones awoke and felt a cool chill in the air—his first fall was upon him. He was so cool he could not move right away so he waited until the sun warmed his patch of reeds and his tiny body before moving on. Deep inside his little voice was saying “get home, get home” so he spent the next few days walking as fast as he could upstream following the scent of home as it became stronger and stronger until one day everything looked and smelled just right--Bones was home.
Bones spent the next few months living in the area of the mossy hill, the rotten log and the deep moss of the waters edge. He had a daily routine of warming in the sun, hunting for yummy slugs and other food like tiny insects and spiders, snails, tadpoles and fish. He would take shelter under the log or in the deep moss at night and soak in the shallow water by the ponds edge when he needed a soak. Bones only seldom encountered his siblings in their constant search for food, water and shelter. They were so small and the world was so big and tiny turtles do not move very fast or very far--but life was good.
Part 6. Strange Visitors.
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
CLICK HERE FOR HOMEPAGE
Scratch, scratch sniff sniff scratch scratch sniff sniff came a sound and Bones was awake. He looked all around and saw nothing but the tall reeds and grasses and soft moss of his waterside home. Scratch sniff there it was again and this time it was closer! Bones was out in the open on the mossy hill and he was very afraid. He wanted to run but he wanted to stay still also. He could not see the thing so he chose to run and hope it did not see him. He ran down the hill and crawled under a few dead leaves that were under a rotten log where he wedged himself between a low spot in the log and the ground where he became very still and waited. Seconds later black foot with sharp claws stepped on his mossy hill on the exact spot where he had been sleeping only moments before! The foot was attached to an animal that bones’ little voice said was even more dangerous than the Bear—it was Raccoon! Raccoon stuck its masked face down to the mossy hill and sniffed again and again and made a strange chortling sound. Did it smell him? It sniffed again and again and then it stuck its nose only inches from Bones’ head and sniffed. It then started to dig rapidly in the leaves under the other end of the log with its front paws! The ground was shaking but Bones didn’t move and then the Raccoon sat up with something in its mouth. Bones looked closer and saw that the Raccoon had a caught a large frog and was eating it. Bones saw the Raccoons sharp teeth and felt lucky that it wasn’t him in the Raccoons mouth—-so he stayed very still and soon it moved off and was gone. Bones felt tired and drifted off to sleep under the log and slept for several days.
Part 3. The Torrent!
He was awakened by a loud rumbling sound from the sky accompanied by a bright flash. The rumblings continued for what seemed like along time then all was very quiet…even the birds stopped singing and there was no wind at all. Bones smelled something new; it was a good smell, a wet smell and smell of water, a smell of life. Then there was a sound like a whisper and the rain began to fall all around. It was soft at first but then became harder falling from the sky in torrents that obscured all vision. Bones could not see out from his hidey-hole or even to the top of the mossy hill. He wasn’t scared at all and in fact he was very happy and he didn’t know why. He crawled up out of his hole, stood tall on his little feet and stretched his neck out as far as it would go and opened his mouth. The rain poured down and ran into his mouth and he took a long drink of the cool fresh water. He stood beside the log in the warm rain for a long time and was almost asleep when he was suddenly awakened by a rushing and gurgling sound. Suddenly from out of the grass to the North came a huge wave of water--it was a flash flood! It swept Bones off of the mossy hill and sent him tumbling head over tail into the middle of the pond! The current was so strong but Bones still paddled his tiny feet as fast as he could. There were other things in the water that kept bumping into Bones—logs, sticks and other things that had been washed down stream along with the water. Bones was getting tired in the cool water and was losing energy, he stuck his head out of the water and took a deep breath and then was driven down deep in the pond by a blast of water. He became tangled in a water plant and was trying to free himself when a huge mouth closed over him—-he was in the mouth of a Largemouth Bass! It was dark and bumpy and the fishes huge tongue was beginning to push up on the tangled mass of grasses. The little voice inside bones’ head screamed “STOP” so Bones froze as he had done when Raccoon and Bear has come near. The huge tongue moved up and down a few more times then stopped and the fish spit him out thinking he was just a tangled glob of grass. He and the grass tumbled through the water and floated to the surface where Bones gulped in a huge gasp of air then suddenly, Bones and his grass clump was caught in a swift current and swept away. The raging water carried Bones in his tangled mass of grass across the pond and then sucked him down into a deep dark pipe. After a long scary fall he landed with a splash in a raging torrent of water that sucked him under the pond’s dam and spit him out into a rushing creek. The creek quickly carried him downstream for a great distance through the forest and through a dark cave before joining with a larger creek. Bones and his grass clump were then gently washed up on the creek bank in some soft sand. Bones was so exhausted from the wild ride that he just fell asleep in the tangled mass of grass and didn’t wake up until the next morning. During the night Bones had a dream. It was a strange dream where Bear and Raccoon were dancing with Bass as the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled overhead. Nearby his brothers and sisters were sitting on the mossy hill watching in wonderment as Bones was eating the biggest slug they had ever seen…it was so big that it towered over them all and was actually very scary. As Bones ate the giant slug his face started to feel very warm and his siblings started to hiss loudly and then suddenly the dream world vanished and Bones awoke to the warm sun on his face and the gurgling creek only a few feet away.
Part 4: The Long Trek
Bones let the sun warm him for a long while before he even moved. Slowly he freed his legs from the grass and pulled himself out of the tangled mass of weeds. He then realized that he was exposed and in the open on the sandbar at the edge of the creek…and he did not know where he was. Bones was lost. He quickly made his way to the reeds near the waters edge and hid deep inside. He took a deep breath and smelled the air for familiar smells but detected only dampness from the recent flood and many unknown scents. His little voice of instinct then said “go upstream” so that is what he did. Off he went in the direction he had come from. Bones walked for the entire day before stopping to eat a beetle and then hide under a rotten stump for the night. The next morning he walked for a short distance before he came to a place where the creek flowed out of a hole in a high, steep hillside. This must be the cave he passed through on his speedy journey downstream during the flash flood. Bones looked at the hole and he looked at the creek and his little voice told him that it was not possible for such a tiny turtle to follow the water through the hole in the hill. He decided that the only way home was to go up and over the steep hill so up he went. After he had clambered through some thick grass and stopped to eat a snail he stopped in his tracks when he felt a deep rumbling in the earth coming from the west that shook his tiny bones. It wasn’t the sky rumblings that he felt and heard sometimes when it rains—this came up from the ground through his tiny feet and his little voice said DANGER! The rumbling grew quickly stronger and then there was a sudden sound like a great wind--WooooOOOSSSSsshhhh…and all was quiet again. Bones quickly crawled deep under the nearby grass and hid very still. He waited for a few moments and when the danger did not return he felt safe and began to venture out and suddenly rumble RUMBLE Wooosh again! This time it was from the east…WoosSSSSssshhhh…and it was quiet again so Bones hid deeper into the grass. As he lay there listening to the sounds he felt trapped and very afraid by the strange rumbling sound, he felt like he should not move until it was gone. Soon the sun went down and the night creatures began to call and prowl so Bones dug a little deeper into the grass, held very still and soon fell into a light and restless sleep. He was awakened several times during the night by the scary sound but he did not move for the entire night and well into the next day. By mid afternoon of the next day Bones was beginning to get overheated because he was so exposed to the heat of the sun in the small clump of grass. He needed to move but he was afraid of the “thing” that had kept him captive in the grass for so long. His little voice told him over and over “move, move, move or you will die.” Bones knew that he could not go back down the hill because this was the wrong way…his little voice had already told him that this was not the way to his home near the pond. He knew that he must follow the water uphill if he wanted to find the familiar smells and places of his moist mossy home. He slowly made his way out of the grass into the bright sun, there was no more places to hide and no more shade near the top of the hill—only short cropped grass—as if some large herd of grazing animals had eaten it down almost to the ground. Bones felt very exposed, it was so hot and he was so thirsty. As he walked as fast as he could toward the top of the hill he began to feel as if he was cooking in his shell so he opened his mouth and began to pant. Then he wiped his spittle all over his face and front legs and this felt sooo good. It cooled him down so he could think again. RRuuummmbbbbllleeeee WooooosssHHHhhhh went the thing again and this time Bones saw the source of the sound—it was a huge shiny red thing with four black legs and it was moving very fast from the west to the east. It was gone and as bones watched it continued east and disappeared into the far distance. What was this animal? How could it move so fast? Why was it going so fast? Bones didn’t know the answer to any of these questions and he did not care—he just wanted to go home to his pond and its safety. He sat for a moment to make sure on more of the red monsters came and then started walking as fast as he could over the top of the hill. The top was flat and had a black rock on it that stretched as far as he could see from east to west. Bones walked out onto the rock and started across. As he walked his feet began to feel warm…then hot…the sun had cooked the rock for hours making it very hot!! His feet hurt so bad so he stopped walking halfway across the rock, pulled his feet up and rested on the bottom of his shell. This rock would be a good place to warm up if the weather was cooler said Bones’ little voice…if it wasn’t for the big red monsters and the exposed feeling. Bones rubbed some more spittle over his face and legs and felt much cooler. Suddenly from the east he saw something approaching…it was huge and he could feel it rumbling starting! The ground was shaking and the monster was almost upon him so he started to run to the safety of the other side of the rock. The thing was big, black and had a huge thing on its back—almost like his shell—and then WOOOOOSSSHHHHH it passed only inches from Bones almost crushing him with its giant black feet! It was much bigger than the other creature and much longer. A huge wind followed this creature and it grabbed at Bones, lifted him up and hurled him through the air and into the grass on the other side of the rock! He was upside down, stunned and afraid. He lay there for a moment not sure of what had just happened. His little voice told him what to do so he stuck his head and legs way out and twisted his neck up and over and flip—he was upright again! He looked around and discovered that he was on the other side of the rock so of he went across the grass and down the hill into the welcome shade of the bushes. He crawled under some leaves down to the damp soil to cool off for awhile and soon he was fast asleep. A few hours later he awoke with a very dry mouth and his little voice yelling WATER! So he dug out of the leaves and headed downhill through the bushes. He came out of the bushes and almost fell into the stream. He had made it, somehow he had made it. He made his way along the stream bank until he found a shallow spot—he didn’t want to get washed back under the hill again—-and then eased down to the waters edge and walked into the water until he was shell deep in the cool creek. He drank long of the cool, clean water letting it wash over his face and shell. It felt so good on his feet and seemed to give him a new energy. Bones just loved the water.
Part 5. Home again.
As he drank his fill and sat in the cool stream for a few hours Bones began to smell a familiar smell…it was the smell of home. Somewhere far upstream the old log beside the mossy hill was calling to him. It was time to move on toward home so off he went up the creek one step at a time. The creek bottom was sandy and the water was shallow in most places so Bones had no trouble making his way upstream. In a few places the stream deepened into crystal clear holes full of shinny minnows, snails and salamanders. Bones ate several snails and one unlucky big black salamander before continuing onward upstream.
One very hot day Bones found a huge Oak tree whose roots grew in a tangled mass down into the water. Pockets of glorious squishy mud had collected in between the roots and Bones found one that was just the perfect size for a little box turtle so he eased down into the soft mud to escape the hot sun. He stayed in the nice mud for several days until the heat wave ended when a mid afternoon rain shower awakened him from his slumber. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a young crayfish sitting very close to his head! It moved in such a way that made Bones’ stomach growl with hunger so he slowly eased his head out as far as it would go and then SNAP—-he bit the crayfish in half with his sharp little beak! It tasted sooo good after several days without food that he ate the entire creature even though it was a bit crunchy. The meal gave Bones a new energy so he pulled himself out of the thick, wet mud and into the stream to wash off. As the mud washed off of his body Bones began to feel harder drops of rain fall on his back—this brought back a memory of the flood that washed him downstream and into his present location—so he quickly made his way out of the stream and into the nearby forest. He walked along the edge of the stream in the pouring rain following it uphill toward home. A few hours later it began to get dark so Bones found a hollow, rotten log and cautiously crawled inside to take shelter for the night. He could not see in the semi-darkness of the log as his eyes adjusted to the dark so he settled down in a small depression where the log met the ground. His feet felt a tangle of small roots and soil along with what felt like warm, dry grass so he dug into the grass to go to sleep and then suddenly the grass moved! Whatever it was it was not grass and it turned around to see what had tickled its body. In the low light of the rotten log Bones saw the strangest and scariest creature he had ever seen—it was a huge Opossum! Opossum sat there looking around with its beady little black eyes trying to figure out what had disturbed its slumber. It sniffed the air with its round, pink nose then opened its mouth to yawn showing Bones its 50 big, sharp, pointy teeth! The sight of these teeth terrified Bones but he just sat perfectly still in terror. Then the Opossum in its searching put its pink, sweaty foot directly on top of Bones! The weight of the Opossum hurt his shell terribly but it was what saved his life because if the Opossum had discovered Bones it would have surely eaten him in one quick chomp. The Opossum’s foot pressed Bones down through the tangled roots and he fell through the ground with a thump onto his back into the pitch dark of a tunnel in the earth. His little voice shouted “danger—turn over” so he did just that. Seconds later the nose of the Opossum poked through the hole he had just fallen through and began sniffing loudly. Its damp warmth brushed Bones’ head, took another sniff and then the Opossum stuck its giant wet tongue all over Bones head and back—yuck! Then the Opossum started digging trying to reach the tasty morsel it had just discovered! Bones little voice yelled RUN so off he went even though he could not see where he was going. He ran and ran through the tunnel in the dark, hitting the side of the tunnel several times before he finally stopped when he couldn’t hear the sniffing and digging of the Opossum behind him and then he dug himself into a small pile of dirt and fell asleep.
What seemed like several hours or possibly days later he awakened in the dark, buried in dirt and he was cold, his stomach hurt and his little voice said “get warm or die!” Bones just had to get to the surface and sit in the warm sun so his big meal of crayfish would be able to digest so he dug himself out of the dirt and sat there in the dark for awhile trying to figure out which way to go in the blackness. Soon he started walking through the dark tunnel in the earth. It twisted and turned around rocks and over roots and Bones kept bumping into the walls and tripping over things he could not see. After what seemed like hours of walking in the dark and running into things Bones saw light! It was very faint but it was still light so Bones quickened his pace in the old root tunnel and the closer he came to the light the better he could see things around him—roots hung down from above and rocks stuck out of the walls in some places and on the walls of the tunnel there were huge Crickets about half the size of Bones! The crickets waved their feelers in the air trying to make sense of the strange surface dweller who had invaded their home. Soon Bones came to the source of the light—a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel that led up and out of the tunnel! Bones looked up and saw the sky through the canopy of leaves above and he could smell the forest and nearby creek. He wanted to climb to safety as fast as his little turtle legs could carry him but he remembered his close call with Opossum so he waited and listened for a time then when he felt it was safe he slowly and quietly climbed up through the hole to the surface at last and into the bright sun. He sat half in and half out of the hole checking the surrounding area for Opossum or any other danger that might be nearby. As he sat very still in the sun he could feel the energy returning to his body and his stomach ache soon went away and he felt like himself again. Finally he felt that it was safe to move so he started walking toward the smell of the creek that was coming through the thick Rhododendrons in front of him. Once he made it to the creek he walked into the water and walked straight in and totally submerged himself in the cool clean water. He sat there for several hours until he felt “just right” then made his way back to the creek bank where he dug down into some thick reeds for the night.
Bones awoke and felt a cool chill in the air—his first fall was upon him. He was so cool he could not move right away so he waited until the sun warmed his patch of reeds and his tiny body before moving on. Deep inside his little voice was saying “get home, get home” so he spent the next few days walking as fast as he could upstream following the scent of home as it became stronger and stronger until one day everything looked and smelled just right--Bones was home.
Bones spent the next few months living in the area of the mossy hill, the rotten log and the deep moss of the waters edge. He had a daily routine of warming in the sun, hunting for yummy slugs and other food like tiny insects and spiders, snails, tadpoles and fish. He would take shelter under the log or in the deep moss at night and soak in the shallow water by the ponds edge when he needed a soak. Bones only seldom encountered his siblings in their constant search for food, water and shelter. They were so small and the world was so big and tiny turtles do not move very fast or very far--but life was good.
Part 6. Strange Visitors.
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
CLICK HERE FOR HOMEPAGE
He was awakened by a loud rumbling sound from the sky accompanied by a bright flash. The rumblings continued for what seemed like along time then all was very quiet…even the birds stopped singing and there was no wind at all. Bones smelled something new; it was a good smell, a wet smell and smell of water, a smell of life. Then there was a sound like a whisper and the rain began to fall all around. It was soft at first but then became harder falling from the sky in torrents that obscured all vision. Bones could not see out from his hidey-hole or even to the top of the mossy hill. He wasn’t scared at all and in fact he was very happy and he didn’t know why. He crawled up out of his hole, stood tall on his little feet and stretched his neck out as far as it would go and opened his mouth. The rain poured down and ran into his mouth and he took a long drink of the cool fresh water. He stood beside the log in the warm rain for a long time and was almost asleep when he was suddenly awakened by a rushing and gurgling sound. Suddenly from out of the grass to the North came a huge wave of water--it was a flash flood! It swept Bones off of the mossy hill and sent him tumbling head over tail into the middle of the pond! The current was so strong but Bones still paddled his tiny feet as fast as he could. There were other things in the water that kept bumping into Bones—logs, sticks and other things that had been washed down stream along with the water. Bones was getting tired in the cool water and was losing energy, he stuck his head out of the water and took a deep breath and then was driven down deep in the pond by a blast of water. He became tangled in a water plant and was trying to free himself when a huge mouth closed over him—-he was in the mouth of a Largemouth Bass! It was dark and bumpy and the fishes huge tongue was beginning to push up on the tangled mass of grasses. The little voice inside bones’ head screamed “STOP” so Bones froze as he had done when Raccoon and Bear has come near. The huge tongue moved up and down a few more times then stopped and the fish spit him out thinking he was just a tangled glob of grass. He and the grass tumbled through the water and floated to the surface where Bones gulped in a huge gasp of air then suddenly, Bones and his grass clump was caught in a swift current and swept away. The raging water carried Bones in his tangled mass of grass across the pond and then sucked him down into a deep dark pipe. After a long scary fall he landed with a splash in a raging torrent of water that sucked him under the pond’s dam and spit him out into a rushing creek. The creek quickly carried him downstream for a great distance through the forest and through a dark cave before joining with a larger creek. Bones and his grass clump were then gently washed up on the creek bank in some soft sand. Bones was so exhausted from the wild ride that he just fell asleep in the tangled mass of grass and didn’t wake up until the next morning. During the night Bones had a dream. It was a strange dream where Bear and Raccoon were dancing with Bass as the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled overhead. Nearby his brothers and sisters were sitting on the mossy hill watching in wonderment as Bones was eating the biggest slug they had ever seen…it was so big that it towered over them all and was actually very scary. As Bones ate the giant slug his face started to feel very warm and his siblings started to hiss loudly and then suddenly the dream world vanished and Bones awoke to the warm sun on his face and the gurgling creek only a few feet away.
Part 4: The Long Trek
Bones let the sun warm him for a long while before he even moved. Slowly he freed his legs from the grass and pulled himself out of the tangled mass of weeds. He then realized that he was exposed and in the open on the sandbar at the edge of the creek…and he did not know where he was. Bones was lost. He quickly made his way to the reeds near the waters edge and hid deep inside. He took a deep breath and smelled the air for familiar smells but detected only dampness from the recent flood and many unknown scents. His little voice of instinct then said “go upstream” so that is what he did. Off he went in the direction he had come from. Bones walked for the entire day before stopping to eat a beetle and then hide under a rotten stump for the night. The next morning he walked for a short distance before he came to a place where the creek flowed out of a hole in a high, steep hillside. This must be the cave he passed through on his speedy journey downstream during the flash flood. Bones looked at the hole and he looked at the creek and his little voice told him that it was not possible for such a tiny turtle to follow the water through the hole in the hill. He decided that the only way home was to go up and over the steep hill so up he went. After he had clambered through some thick grass and stopped to eat a snail he stopped in his tracks when he felt a deep rumbling in the earth coming from the west that shook his tiny bones. It wasn’t the sky rumblings that he felt and heard sometimes when it rains—this came up from the ground through his tiny feet and his little voice said DANGER! The rumbling grew quickly stronger and then there was a sudden sound like a great wind--WooooOOOSSSSsshhhh…and all was quiet again. Bones quickly crawled deep under the nearby grass and hid very still. He waited for a few moments and when the danger did not return he felt safe and began to venture out and suddenly rumble RUMBLE Wooosh again! This time it was from the east…WoosSSSSssshhhh…and it was quiet again so Bones hid deeper into the grass. As he lay there listening to the sounds he felt trapped and very afraid by the strange rumbling sound, he felt like he should not move until it was gone. Soon the sun went down and the night creatures began to call and prowl so Bones dug a little deeper into the grass, held very still and soon fell into a light and restless sleep. He was awakened several times during the night by the scary sound but he did not move for the entire night and well into the next day. By mid afternoon of the next day Bones was beginning to get overheated because he was so exposed to the heat of the sun in the small clump of grass. He needed to move but he was afraid of the “thing” that had kept him captive in the grass for so long. His little voice told him over and over “move, move, move or you will die.” Bones knew that he could not go back down the hill because this was the wrong way…his little voice had already told him that this was not the way to his home near the pond. He knew that he must follow the water uphill if he wanted to find the familiar smells and places of his moist mossy home. He slowly made his way out of the grass into the bright sun, there was no more places to hide and no more shade near the top of the hill—only short cropped grass—as if some large herd of grazing animals had eaten it down almost to the ground. Bones felt very exposed, it was so hot and he was so thirsty. As he walked as fast as he could toward the top of the hill he began to feel as if he was cooking in his shell so he opened his mouth and began to pant. Then he wiped his spittle all over his face and front legs and this felt sooo good. It cooled him down so he could think again. RRuuummmbbbbllleeeee WooooosssHHHhhhh went the thing again and this time Bones saw the source of the sound—it was a huge shiny red thing with four black legs and it was moving very fast from the west to the east. It was gone and as bones watched it continued east and disappeared into the far distance. What was this animal? How could it move so fast? Why was it going so fast? Bones didn’t know the answer to any of these questions and he did not care—he just wanted to go home to his pond and its safety. He sat for a moment to make sure on more of the red monsters came and then started walking as fast as he could over the top of the hill. The top was flat and had a black rock on it that stretched as far as he could see from east to west. Bones walked out onto the rock and started across. As he walked his feet began to feel warm…then hot…the sun had cooked the rock for hours making it very hot!! His feet hurt so bad so he stopped walking halfway across the rock, pulled his feet up and rested on the bottom of his shell. This rock would be a good place to warm up if the weather was cooler said Bones’ little voice…if it wasn’t for the big red monsters and the exposed feeling. Bones rubbed some more spittle over his face and legs and felt much cooler. Suddenly from the east he saw something approaching…it was huge and he could feel it rumbling starting! The ground was shaking and the monster was almost upon him so he started to run to the safety of the other side of the rock. The thing was big, black and had a huge thing on its back—almost like his shell—and then WOOOOOSSSHHHHH it passed only inches from Bones almost crushing him with its giant black feet! It was much bigger than the other creature and much longer. A huge wind followed this creature and it grabbed at Bones, lifted him up and hurled him through the air and into the grass on the other side of the rock! He was upside down, stunned and afraid. He lay there for a moment not sure of what had just happened. His little voice told him what to do so he stuck his head and legs way out and twisted his neck up and over and flip—he was upright again! He looked around and discovered that he was on the other side of the rock so of he went across the grass and down the hill into the welcome shade of the bushes. He crawled under some leaves down to the damp soil to cool off for awhile and soon he was fast asleep. A few hours later he awoke with a very dry mouth and his little voice yelling WATER! So he dug out of the leaves and headed downhill through the bushes. He came out of the bushes and almost fell into the stream. He had made it, somehow he had made it. He made his way along the stream bank until he found a shallow spot—he didn’t want to get washed back under the hill again—-and then eased down to the waters edge and walked into the water until he was shell deep in the cool creek. He drank long of the cool, clean water letting it wash over his face and shell. It felt so good on his feet and seemed to give him a new energy. Bones just loved the water.
Part 5. Home again.
As he drank his fill and sat in the cool stream for a few hours Bones began to smell a familiar smell…it was the smell of home. Somewhere far upstream the old log beside the mossy hill was calling to him. It was time to move on toward home so off he went up the creek one step at a time. The creek bottom was sandy and the water was shallow in most places so Bones had no trouble making his way upstream. In a few places the stream deepened into crystal clear holes full of shinny minnows, snails and salamanders. Bones ate several snails and one unlucky big black salamander before continuing onward upstream.
One very hot day Bones found a huge Oak tree whose roots grew in a tangled mass down into the water. Pockets of glorious squishy mud had collected in between the roots and Bones found one that was just the perfect size for a little box turtle so he eased down into the soft mud to escape the hot sun. He stayed in the nice mud for several days until the heat wave ended when a mid afternoon rain shower awakened him from his slumber. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a young crayfish sitting very close to his head! It moved in such a way that made Bones’ stomach growl with hunger so he slowly eased his head out as far as it would go and then SNAP—-he bit the crayfish in half with his sharp little beak! It tasted sooo good after several days without food that he ate the entire creature even though it was a bit crunchy. The meal gave Bones a new energy so he pulled himself out of the thick, wet mud and into the stream to wash off. As the mud washed off of his body Bones began to feel harder drops of rain fall on his back—this brought back a memory of the flood that washed him downstream and into his present location—so he quickly made his way out of the stream and into the nearby forest. He walked along the edge of the stream in the pouring rain following it uphill toward home. A few hours later it began to get dark so Bones found a hollow, rotten log and cautiously crawled inside to take shelter for the night. He could not see in the semi-darkness of the log as his eyes adjusted to the dark so he settled down in a small depression where the log met the ground. His feet felt a tangle of small roots and soil along with what felt like warm, dry grass so he dug into the grass to go to sleep and then suddenly the grass moved! Whatever it was it was not grass and it turned around to see what had tickled its body. In the low light of the rotten log Bones saw the strangest and scariest creature he had ever seen—it was a huge Opossum! Opossum sat there looking around with its beady little black eyes trying to figure out what had disturbed its slumber. It sniffed the air with its round, pink nose then opened its mouth to yawn showing Bones its 50 big, sharp, pointy teeth! The sight of these teeth terrified Bones but he just sat perfectly still in terror. Then the Opossum in its searching put its pink, sweaty foot directly on top of Bones! The weight of the Opossum hurt his shell terribly but it was what saved his life because if the Opossum had discovered Bones it would have surely eaten him in one quick chomp. The Opossum’s foot pressed Bones down through the tangled roots and he fell through the ground with a thump onto his back into the pitch dark of a tunnel in the earth. His little voice shouted “danger—turn over” so he did just that. Seconds later the nose of the Opossum poked through the hole he had just fallen through and began sniffing loudly. Its damp warmth brushed Bones’ head, took another sniff and then the Opossum stuck its giant wet tongue all over Bones head and back—yuck! Then the Opossum started digging trying to reach the tasty morsel it had just discovered! Bones little voice yelled RUN so off he went even though he could not see where he was going. He ran and ran through the tunnel in the dark, hitting the side of the tunnel several times before he finally stopped when he couldn’t hear the sniffing and digging of the Opossum behind him and then he dug himself into a small pile of dirt and fell asleep.
What seemed like several hours or possibly days later he awakened in the dark, buried in dirt and he was cold, his stomach hurt and his little voice said “get warm or die!” Bones just had to get to the surface and sit in the warm sun so his big meal of crayfish would be able to digest so he dug himself out of the dirt and sat there in the dark for awhile trying to figure out which way to go in the blackness. Soon he started walking through the dark tunnel in the earth. It twisted and turned around rocks and over roots and Bones kept bumping into the walls and tripping over things he could not see. After what seemed like hours of walking in the dark and running into things Bones saw light! It was very faint but it was still light so Bones quickened his pace in the old root tunnel and the closer he came to the light the better he could see things around him—roots hung down from above and rocks stuck out of the walls in some places and on the walls of the tunnel there were huge Crickets about half the size of Bones! The crickets waved their feelers in the air trying to make sense of the strange surface dweller who had invaded their home. Soon Bones came to the source of the light—a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel that led up and out of the tunnel! Bones looked up and saw the sky through the canopy of leaves above and he could smell the forest and nearby creek. He wanted to climb to safety as fast as his little turtle legs could carry him but he remembered his close call with Opossum so he waited and listened for a time then when he felt it was safe he slowly and quietly climbed up through the hole to the surface at last and into the bright sun. He sat half in and half out of the hole checking the surrounding area for Opossum or any other danger that might be nearby. As he sat very still in the sun he could feel the energy returning to his body and his stomach ache soon went away and he felt like himself again. Finally he felt that it was safe to move so he started walking toward the smell of the creek that was coming through the thick Rhododendrons in front of him. Once he made it to the creek he walked into the water and walked straight in and totally submerged himself in the cool clean water. He sat there for several hours until he felt “just right” then made his way back to the creek bank where he dug down into some thick reeds for the night.
Bones awoke and felt a cool chill in the air—his first fall was upon him. He was so cool he could not move right away so he waited until the sun warmed his patch of reeds and his tiny body before moving on. Deep inside his little voice was saying “get home, get home” so he spent the next few days walking as fast as he could upstream following the scent of home as it became stronger and stronger until one day everything looked and smelled just right--Bones was home.
Bones spent the next few months living in the area of the mossy hill, the rotten log and the deep moss of the waters edge. He had a daily routine of warming in the sun, hunting for yummy slugs and other food like tiny insects and spiders, snails, tadpoles and fish. He would take shelter under the log or in the deep moss at night and soak in the shallow water by the ponds edge when he needed a soak. Bones only seldom encountered his siblings in their constant search for food, water and shelter. They were so small and the world was so big and tiny turtles do not move very fast or very far--but life was good.
Part 6. Strange Visitors.
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
CLICK HERE FOR HOMEPAGE
Bones let the sun warm him for a long while before he even moved. Slowly he freed his legs from the grass and pulled himself out of the tangled mass of weeds. He then realized that he was exposed and in the open on the sandbar at the edge of the creek…and he did not know where he was. Bones was lost. He quickly made his way to the reeds near the waters edge and hid deep inside. He took a deep breath and smelled the air for familiar smells but detected only dampness from the recent flood and many unknown scents. His little voice of instinct then said “go upstream” so that is what he did. Off he went in the direction he had come from. Bones walked for the entire day before stopping to eat a beetle and then hide under a rotten stump for the night. The next morning he walked for a short distance before he came to a place where the creek flowed out of a hole in a high, steep hillside. This must be the cave he passed through on his speedy journey downstream during the flash flood. Bones looked at the hole and he looked at the creek and his little voice told him that it was not possible for such a tiny turtle to follow the water through the hole in the hill. He decided that the only way home was to go up and over the steep hill so up he went. After he had clambered through some thick grass and stopped to eat a snail he stopped in his tracks when he felt a deep rumbling in the earth coming from the west that shook his tiny bones. It wasn’t the sky rumblings that he felt and heard sometimes when it rains—this came up from the ground through his tiny feet and his little voice said DANGER! The rumbling grew quickly stronger and then there was a sudden sound like a great wind--WooooOOOSSSSsshhhh…and all was quiet again. Bones quickly crawled deep under the nearby grass and hid very still. He waited for a few moments and when the danger did not return he felt safe and began to venture out and suddenly rumble RUMBLE Wooosh again! This time it was from the east…WoosSSSSssshhhh…and it was quiet again so Bones hid deeper into the grass. As he lay there listening to the sounds he felt trapped and very afraid by the strange rumbling sound, he felt like he should not move until it was gone. Soon the sun went down and the night creatures began to call and prowl so Bones dug a little deeper into the grass, held very still and soon fell into a light and restless sleep. He was awakened several times during the night by the scary sound but he did not move for the entire night and well into the next day. By mid afternoon of the next day Bones was beginning to get overheated because he was so exposed to the heat of the sun in the small clump of grass. He needed to move but he was afraid of the “thing” that had kept him captive in the grass for so long. His little voice told him over and over “move, move, move or you will die.” Bones knew that he could not go back down the hill because this was the wrong way…his little voice had already told him that this was not the way to his home near the pond. He knew that he must follow the water uphill if he wanted to find the familiar smells and places of his moist mossy home. He slowly made his way out of the grass into the bright sun, there was no more places to hide and no more shade near the top of the hill—only short cropped grass—as if some large herd of grazing animals had eaten it down almost to the ground. Bones felt very exposed, it was so hot and he was so thirsty. As he walked as fast as he could toward the top of the hill he began to feel as if he was cooking in his shell so he opened his mouth and began to pant. Then he wiped his spittle all over his face and front legs and this felt sooo good. It cooled him down so he could think again. RRuuummmbbbbllleeeee WooooosssHHHhhhh went the thing again and this time Bones saw the source of the sound—it was a huge shiny red thing with four black legs and it was moving very fast from the west to the east. It was gone and as bones watched it continued east and disappeared into the far distance. What was this animal? How could it move so fast? Why was it going so fast? Bones didn’t know the answer to any of these questions and he did not care—he just wanted to go home to his pond and its safety. He sat for a moment to make sure on more of the red monsters came and then started walking as fast as he could over the top of the hill. The top was flat and had a black rock on it that stretched as far as he could see from east to west. Bones walked out onto the rock and started across. As he walked his feet began to feel warm…then hot…the sun had cooked the rock for hours making it very hot!! His feet hurt so bad so he stopped walking halfway across the rock, pulled his feet up and rested on the bottom of his shell. This rock would be a good place to warm up if the weather was cooler said Bones’ little voice…if it wasn’t for the big red monsters and the exposed feeling. Bones rubbed some more spittle over his face and legs and felt much cooler. Suddenly from the east he saw something approaching…it was huge and he could feel it rumbling starting! The ground was shaking and the monster was almost upon him so he started to run to the safety of the other side of the rock. The thing was big, black and had a huge thing on its back—almost like his shell—and then WOOOOOSSSHHHHH it passed only inches from Bones almost crushing him with its giant black feet! It was much bigger than the other creature and much longer. A huge wind followed this creature and it grabbed at Bones, lifted him up and hurled him through the air and into the grass on the other side of the rock! He was upside down, stunned and afraid. He lay there for a moment not sure of what had just happened. His little voice told him what to do so he stuck his head and legs way out and twisted his neck up and over and flip—he was upright again! He looked around and discovered that he was on the other side of the rock so of he went across the grass and down the hill into the welcome shade of the bushes. He crawled under some leaves down to the damp soil to cool off for awhile and soon he was fast asleep. A few hours later he awoke with a very dry mouth and his little voice yelling WATER! So he dug out of the leaves and headed downhill through the bushes. He came out of the bushes and almost fell into the stream. He had made it, somehow he had made it. He made his way along the stream bank until he found a shallow spot—he didn’t want to get washed back under the hill again—-and then eased down to the waters edge and walked into the water until he was shell deep in the cool creek. He drank long of the cool, clean water letting it wash over his face and shell. It felt so good on his feet and seemed to give him a new energy. Bones just loved the water.
Part 5. Home again.
As he drank his fill and sat in the cool stream for a few hours Bones began to smell a familiar smell…it was the smell of home. Somewhere far upstream the old log beside the mossy hill was calling to him. It was time to move on toward home so off he went up the creek one step at a time. The creek bottom was sandy and the water was shallow in most places so Bones had no trouble making his way upstream. In a few places the stream deepened into crystal clear holes full of shinny minnows, snails and salamanders. Bones ate several snails and one unlucky big black salamander before continuing onward upstream.
One very hot day Bones found a huge Oak tree whose roots grew in a tangled mass down into the water. Pockets of glorious squishy mud had collected in between the roots and Bones found one that was just the perfect size for a little box turtle so he eased down into the soft mud to escape the hot sun. He stayed in the nice mud for several days until the heat wave ended when a mid afternoon rain shower awakened him from his slumber. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a young crayfish sitting very close to his head! It moved in such a way that made Bones’ stomach growl with hunger so he slowly eased his head out as far as it would go and then SNAP—-he bit the crayfish in half with his sharp little beak! It tasted sooo good after several days without food that he ate the entire creature even though it was a bit crunchy. The meal gave Bones a new energy so he pulled himself out of the thick, wet mud and into the stream to wash off. As the mud washed off of his body Bones began to feel harder drops of rain fall on his back—this brought back a memory of the flood that washed him downstream and into his present location—so he quickly made his way out of the stream and into the nearby forest. He walked along the edge of the stream in the pouring rain following it uphill toward home. A few hours later it began to get dark so Bones found a hollow, rotten log and cautiously crawled inside to take shelter for the night. He could not see in the semi-darkness of the log as his eyes adjusted to the dark so he settled down in a small depression where the log met the ground. His feet felt a tangle of small roots and soil along with what felt like warm, dry grass so he dug into the grass to go to sleep and then suddenly the grass moved! Whatever it was it was not grass and it turned around to see what had tickled its body. In the low light of the rotten log Bones saw the strangest and scariest creature he had ever seen—it was a huge Opossum! Opossum sat there looking around with its beady little black eyes trying to figure out what had disturbed its slumber. It sniffed the air with its round, pink nose then opened its mouth to yawn showing Bones its 50 big, sharp, pointy teeth! The sight of these teeth terrified Bones but he just sat perfectly still in terror. Then the Opossum in its searching put its pink, sweaty foot directly on top of Bones! The weight of the Opossum hurt his shell terribly but it was what saved his life because if the Opossum had discovered Bones it would have surely eaten him in one quick chomp. The Opossum’s foot pressed Bones down through the tangled roots and he fell through the ground with a thump onto his back into the pitch dark of a tunnel in the earth. His little voice shouted “danger—turn over” so he did just that. Seconds later the nose of the Opossum poked through the hole he had just fallen through and began sniffing loudly. Its damp warmth brushed Bones’ head, took another sniff and then the Opossum stuck its giant wet tongue all over Bones head and back—yuck! Then the Opossum started digging trying to reach the tasty morsel it had just discovered! Bones little voice yelled RUN so off he went even though he could not see where he was going. He ran and ran through the tunnel in the dark, hitting the side of the tunnel several times before he finally stopped when he couldn’t hear the sniffing and digging of the Opossum behind him and then he dug himself into a small pile of dirt and fell asleep.
What seemed like several hours or possibly days later he awakened in the dark, buried in dirt and he was cold, his stomach hurt and his little voice said “get warm or die!” Bones just had to get to the surface and sit in the warm sun so his big meal of crayfish would be able to digest so he dug himself out of the dirt and sat there in the dark for awhile trying to figure out which way to go in the blackness. Soon he started walking through the dark tunnel in the earth. It twisted and turned around rocks and over roots and Bones kept bumping into the walls and tripping over things he could not see. After what seemed like hours of walking in the dark and running into things Bones saw light! It was very faint but it was still light so Bones quickened his pace in the old root tunnel and the closer he came to the light the better he could see things around him—roots hung down from above and rocks stuck out of the walls in some places and on the walls of the tunnel there were huge Crickets about half the size of Bones! The crickets waved their feelers in the air trying to make sense of the strange surface dweller who had invaded their home. Soon Bones came to the source of the light—a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel that led up and out of the tunnel! Bones looked up and saw the sky through the canopy of leaves above and he could smell the forest and nearby creek. He wanted to climb to safety as fast as his little turtle legs could carry him but he remembered his close call with Opossum so he waited and listened for a time then when he felt it was safe he slowly and quietly climbed up through the hole to the surface at last and into the bright sun. He sat half in and half out of the hole checking the surrounding area for Opossum or any other danger that might be nearby. As he sat very still in the sun he could feel the energy returning to his body and his stomach ache soon went away and he felt like himself again. Finally he felt that it was safe to move so he started walking toward the smell of the creek that was coming through the thick Rhododendrons in front of him. Once he made it to the creek he walked into the water and walked straight in and totally submerged himself in the cool clean water. He sat there for several hours until he felt “just right” then made his way back to the creek bank where he dug down into some thick reeds for the night.
Bones awoke and felt a cool chill in the air—his first fall was upon him. He was so cool he could not move right away so he waited until the sun warmed his patch of reeds and his tiny body before moving on. Deep inside his little voice was saying “get home, get home” so he spent the next few days walking as fast as he could upstream following the scent of home as it became stronger and stronger until one day everything looked and smelled just right--Bones was home.
Bones spent the next few months living in the area of the mossy hill, the rotten log and the deep moss of the waters edge. He had a daily routine of warming in the sun, hunting for yummy slugs and other food like tiny insects and spiders, snails, tadpoles and fish. He would take shelter under the log or in the deep moss at night and soak in the shallow water by the ponds edge when he needed a soak. Bones only seldom encountered his siblings in their constant search for food, water and shelter. They were so small and the world was so big and tiny turtles do not move very fast or very far--but life was good.
Part 6. Strange Visitors.
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
CLICK HERE FOR HOMEPAGE
As he drank his fill and sat in the cool stream for a few hours Bones began to smell a familiar smell…it was the smell of home. Somewhere far upstream the old log beside the mossy hill was calling to him. It was time to move on toward home so off he went up the creek one step at a time. The creek bottom was sandy and the water was shallow in most places so Bones had no trouble making his way upstream. In a few places the stream deepened into crystal clear holes full of shinny minnows, snails and salamanders. Bones ate several snails and one unlucky big black salamander before continuing onward upstream.
One very hot day Bones found a huge Oak tree whose roots grew in a tangled mass down into the water. Pockets of glorious squishy mud had collected in between the roots and Bones found one that was just the perfect size for a little box turtle so he eased down into the soft mud to escape the hot sun. He stayed in the nice mud for several days until the heat wave ended when a mid afternoon rain shower awakened him from his slumber. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a young crayfish sitting very close to his head! It moved in such a way that made Bones’ stomach growl with hunger so he slowly eased his head out as far as it would go and then SNAP—-he bit the crayfish in half with his sharp little beak! It tasted sooo good after several days without food that he ate the entire creature even though it was a bit crunchy. The meal gave Bones a new energy so he pulled himself out of the thick, wet mud and into the stream to wash off. As the mud washed off of his body Bones began to feel harder drops of rain fall on his back—this brought back a memory of the flood that washed him downstream and into his present location—so he quickly made his way out of the stream and into the nearby forest. He walked along the edge of the stream in the pouring rain following it uphill toward home. A few hours later it began to get dark so Bones found a hollow, rotten log and cautiously crawled inside to take shelter for the night. He could not see in the semi-darkness of the log as his eyes adjusted to the dark so he settled down in a small depression where the log met the ground. His feet felt a tangle of small roots and soil along with what felt like warm, dry grass so he dug into the grass to go to sleep and then suddenly the grass moved! Whatever it was it was not grass and it turned around to see what had tickled its body. In the low light of the rotten log Bones saw the strangest and scariest creature he had ever seen—it was a huge Opossum! Opossum sat there looking around with its beady little black eyes trying to figure out what had disturbed its slumber. It sniffed the air with its round, pink nose then opened its mouth to yawn showing Bones its 50 big, sharp, pointy teeth! The sight of these teeth terrified Bones but he just sat perfectly still in terror. Then the Opossum in its searching put its pink, sweaty foot directly on top of Bones! The weight of the Opossum hurt his shell terribly but it was what saved his life because if the Opossum had discovered Bones it would have surely eaten him in one quick chomp. The Opossum’s foot pressed Bones down through the tangled roots and he fell through the ground with a thump onto his back into the pitch dark of a tunnel in the earth. His little voice shouted “danger—turn over” so he did just that. Seconds later the nose of the Opossum poked through the hole he had just fallen through and began sniffing loudly. Its damp warmth brushed Bones’ head, took another sniff and then the Opossum stuck its giant wet tongue all over Bones head and back—yuck! Then the Opossum started digging trying to reach the tasty morsel it had just discovered! Bones little voice yelled RUN so off he went even though he could not see where he was going. He ran and ran through the tunnel in the dark, hitting the side of the tunnel several times before he finally stopped when he couldn’t hear the sniffing and digging of the Opossum behind him and then he dug himself into a small pile of dirt and fell asleep.
What seemed like several hours or possibly days later he awakened in the dark, buried in dirt and he was cold, his stomach hurt and his little voice said “get warm or die!” Bones just had to get to the surface and sit in the warm sun so his big meal of crayfish would be able to digest so he dug himself out of the dirt and sat there in the dark for awhile trying to figure out which way to go in the blackness. Soon he started walking through the dark tunnel in the earth. It twisted and turned around rocks and over roots and Bones kept bumping into the walls and tripping over things he could not see. After what seemed like hours of walking in the dark and running into things Bones saw light! It was very faint but it was still light so Bones quickened his pace in the old root tunnel and the closer he came to the light the better he could see things around him—roots hung down from above and rocks stuck out of the walls in some places and on the walls of the tunnel there were huge Crickets about half the size of Bones! The crickets waved their feelers in the air trying to make sense of the strange surface dweller who had invaded their home. Soon Bones came to the source of the light—a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel that led up and out of the tunnel! Bones looked up and saw the sky through the canopy of leaves above and he could smell the forest and nearby creek. He wanted to climb to safety as fast as his little turtle legs could carry him but he remembered his close call with Opossum so he waited and listened for a time then when he felt it was safe he slowly and quietly climbed up through the hole to the surface at last and into the bright sun. He sat half in and half out of the hole checking the surrounding area for Opossum or any other danger that might be nearby. As he sat very still in the sun he could feel the energy returning to his body and his stomach ache soon went away and he felt like himself again. Finally he felt that it was safe to move so he started walking toward the smell of the creek that was coming through the thick Rhododendrons in front of him. Once he made it to the creek he walked into the water and walked straight in and totally submerged himself in the cool clean water. He sat there for several hours until he felt “just right” then made his way back to the creek bank where he dug down into some thick reeds for the night.
Bones awoke and felt a cool chill in the air—his first fall was upon him. He was so cool he could not move right away so he waited until the sun warmed his patch of reeds and his tiny body before moving on. Deep inside his little voice was saying “get home, get home” so he spent the next few days walking as fast as he could upstream following the scent of home as it became stronger and stronger until one day everything looked and smelled just right--Bones was home.
Bones spent the next few months living in the area of the mossy hill, the rotten log and the deep moss of the waters edge. He had a daily routine of warming in the sun, hunting for yummy slugs and other food like tiny insects and spiders, snails, tadpoles and fish. He would take shelter under the log or in the deep moss at night and soak in the shallow water by the ponds edge when he needed a soak. Bones only seldom encountered his siblings in their constant search for food, water and shelter. They were so small and the world was so big and tiny turtles do not move very fast or very far--but life was good.
Part 6. Strange Visitors.
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
CLICK HERE FOR HOMEPAGE
What seemed like several hours or possibly days later he awakened in the dark, buried in dirt and he was cold, his stomach hurt and his little voice said “get warm or die!” Bones just had to get to the surface and sit in the warm sun so his big meal of crayfish would be able to digest so he dug himself out of the dirt and sat there in the dark for awhile trying to figure out which way to go in the blackness. Soon he started walking through the dark tunnel in the earth. It twisted and turned around rocks and over roots and Bones kept bumping into the walls and tripping over things he could not see. After what seemed like hours of walking in the dark and running into things Bones saw light! It was very faint but it was still light so Bones quickened his pace in the old root tunnel and the closer he came to the light the better he could see things around him—roots hung down from above and rocks stuck out of the walls in some places and on the walls of the tunnel there were huge Crickets about half the size of Bones! The crickets waved their feelers in the air trying to make sense of the strange surface dweller who had invaded their home. Soon Bones came to the source of the light—a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel that led up and out of the tunnel! Bones looked up and saw the sky through the canopy of leaves above and he could smell the forest and nearby creek. He wanted to climb to safety as fast as his little turtle legs could carry him but he remembered his close call with Opossum so he waited and listened for a time then when he felt it was safe he slowly and quietly climbed up through the hole to the surface at last and into the bright sun. He sat half in and half out of the hole checking the surrounding area for Opossum or any other danger that might be nearby. As he sat very still in the sun he could feel the energy returning to his body and his stomach ache soon went away and he felt like himself again. Finally he felt that it was safe to move so he started walking toward the smell of the creek that was coming through the thick Rhododendrons in front of him. Once he made it to the creek he walked into the water and walked straight in and totally submerged himself in the cool clean water. He sat there for several hours until he felt “just right” then made his way back to the creek bank where he dug down into some thick reeds for the night.
Bones awoke and felt a cool chill in the air—his first fall was upon him. He was so cool he could not move right away so he waited until the sun warmed his patch of reeds and his tiny body before moving on. Deep inside his little voice was saying “get home, get home” so he spent the next few days walking as fast as he could upstream following the scent of home as it became stronger and stronger until one day everything looked and smelled just right--Bones was home.
Bones spent the next few months living in the area of the mossy hill, the rotten log and the deep moss of the waters edge. He had a daily routine of warming in the sun, hunting for yummy slugs and other food like tiny insects and spiders, snails, tadpoles and fish. He would take shelter under the log or in the deep moss at night and soak in the shallow water by the ponds edge when he needed a soak. Bones only seldom encountered his siblings in their constant search for food, water and shelter. They were so small and the world was so big and tiny turtles do not move very fast or very far--but life was good.
Part 6. Strange Visitors.
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
CLICK HERE FOR HOMEPAGE
Bones spent the next few months living in the area of the mossy hill, the rotten log and the deep moss of the waters edge. He had a daily routine of warming in the sun, hunting for yummy slugs and other food like tiny insects and spiders, snails, tadpoles and fish. He would take shelter under the log or in the deep moss at night and soak in the shallow water by the ponds edge when he needed a soak. Bones only seldom encountered his siblings in their constant search for food, water and shelter. They were so small and the world was so big and tiny turtles do not move very fast or very far--but life was good.
Part 6. Strange Visitors.
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
CLICK HERE FOR HOMEPAGE
Then one day Bones awoke to a strange sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was an unusual sound that didn’t sound like it belonged in Bones’ habitat. He slowly stuck his head out from his hiding place under the log and saw...people! More later.
CLICK HERE FOR HOMEPAGE
CLICK HERE FOR HOMEPAGE