Last month I posted a picture of (one of) my most favorite paces to be, Turtle Rock up in my hometown of Calgary. We were there for six weeks helping my mom get some medical procedures done as well as lining her up for an apartment in a great new seniors’ residence. We’ve been home about two weeks now, (hence the lapse in my posting) and just now starting to feel the earth under our feet.
Well, this guy had the earth slip away from under his feet and ended up in the next-door neighbor’s yard.
My writing space is in the front office where I can look out the window ant the forest ahead of me and a house that sits kitty-corner to ours. We live in an area that isn’t rural, and it isn’t urban either. It just, well… perfect. We live fifteen miles south of the main city which has a population of 100 thousand give or take.
There were wonderful things about getting home again.
One of them was being back in a familiar neighborhood and looking out my window as I write and ponder and well, watch my world go by. Part of that world on this day included a neighbor knocking on my door with great urgency.
I was cooking something, so spatula in hand I answered the door.
“Come! Hurry! You just have to see what’s out on the street.”
I followed her out the door aware of the fact that my spatula was dripping bits of whatever I was cooking, the contents forgotten in the excitement.
“Just look at it!” she exclaimed
I looked up the road and saw just up one house parked on the other side of the street a sleek and low, white convertible sports car.
“You got a new car?? Wow that’s racy!!” I said while hoping she would ask me to go for a spin in the new wheels. At this age I can no longer slide gracefully into low riding things, and even worse getting out of them is more of an embarrassment than a problem.
Graceful, it is not.
No! Look. look at this guy!” she directed.
I followed her outstretched hand, fingers pointing specifically at a point in the drain ditch in front of another neighbor’s yard. I didn’t see anything right away, this guy’s camouflage was amazing.
I looked up ready to pose the question, “What am I looking for?” but noticed that in addition to the sports car, there were a few other vehicles and a golf cart parked along both sides of the road.
I still didn’t get it.
Until I looked in the direction that everyone else was looking and saw this guy sitting there calmly amid all eyes on him. A few people had gathered close to him taking pictures and murmuring, “how are we going to move him” and “make sure he doesn’t cross the street.”
“He’s huge!” I screamed. “Where did he come from?”
“Nobody knows.” Someone from the small crowd called out.
“Who can we call?” Another bystander asked.
“What about animal control? Or the Zoo” I offered.
“I wouldn’t have a clue how to even pick him up,” someone said.
“Do they bite?’ another person asked.
“Is it a turtle or a tortoise?” a young voice wondered
There we were, all gathered around this magnificent creature who, in his silence and tranquility rocked our otherwise quiet neighborhood. We were wondering what to do next when a lady walked hurriedly down the road looking intently side to side as she approached our little group.
“Has anyone seen a big tortoise?” she called out to us as she got closer. “He escaped from my yard up the hill.”
The question stunned us all into silence.
“He’s yours?” my next-door neighbor finally called out.
“Yes!” she replied anxiously. “Is he ok?”
We all muttered that he looked ok, that he seemed to be calm, that he didn’t look hurt.
Then someone asked the obvious, “How the hell did he get here?”
She reunited with her lost pet, stroking his shell as if she were petting a soft kitten as she explained, “I have two of them as pets in my yard. When the rain came last night, the dirt washed away from under the fence, and he probably went along for the ride. I have already found his mate.”
“You have two of them? Someone blurted out.
“Oh yes,” she said. “I have had them for years.”
I didn’t know you could have tortoises as pets.
The crowd eventually dispersed. I don’t know how she got the tortoise back to his home in her yard, but I returned to my house and my cooking spatula still in hand.
It’s nice to be back in the neighborhood.