Taking in the Strays

Across the street from us is a dear lady whom I've gotten to know over the last 4 years. She is 70 now, has always been single, and lives with her dog, Cookie, in a small, square stucco house that has been handed down through her family for generation.

She serves lunch at the school during the year and cleans houses and runs errands for "older ladies." When the sun is shining, she will often be found mowing her yard, even if it doesn't need mowing. She also sweeps the street by her curb, and last year she even found a ring worth a couple hundred dollars while she was sweeping. I have learned she enjoys "watching the neighborhood" too.

I am a big fan of building community and have gone over to say, "Hi" and visit since we moved here. Over the last year, she has started coming over to our place for various things.

Today, I heard a knock on my door. Outside was our neighbor lady. She thought that she should let me know what she had just observed.

Apparently, there was a crew from the city filling in potholes. She noticed that they had found a snapping turtle and were putting it into the tar where they were working. She wasn't really sure why they gave up their fun with the turtle, but when they did, they decided to deposit it in our front yard. She just wanted to let me know since she was afraid our two young kids would find it and get too close.

I will keep my feelings to myself about what I think of the road crew sticking a large snapping turtle in hot asphalt and then dropping it in our yard, but why they dropped the turtle in our yard, I really don't know. There is a really nice railroad ditch with a dry run not 50 feet from where they dropped it. Our neighbor lady, however, watched the turtle from her porch and said that it eventually made it's way to the ditch on it's own.

This did get me thinking though. With moving to the country, it is time for us to prepare for the stray cats and dogs to appear in our ditch. Hopefully there won't be any more snapping turtles dropped off though.