Lost Tortoise Found!!

I have some time sitting here in the hospital, so I decided to write about something neat that happened at home.  A few years ago, while visiting the YO Ranch, we fell in love with a Sulcata Tortoise.  Last summer, while we were there we got to visit him again and Gabriella, Sophia and Caleb loved him.   He would eat vegetables from their hands and enjoyed the attention.  I’ve always loved tortoises….not turtles, but tortoises.  For Christmas, I got a large Sulcata Tortoise that someone could no longer have because of his size.  Gabriella also got a little one who lives in her room.  Hers in named Franklin and mine is named Theodore (Theo).   Mine is really large and lives outside in our barnyard until we can finish his special enclosure.  Sulcatas cannot handle cold weather, so we give him a heat lamp on cold nights. 

Franklin and Theodore

Theo is found!

One day in late March, Theo was missing from the barnyard.  We could not imagine how he escaped, but he did.  We walked every day for hours for the first week he was missing, but we could not find him anywhere.  Every once in a while we would find a trail where he had flattened the grass, but it always disappeared.  You are probably thinking, “How can someone lose a 60 pound tortoise and not be able to find it?”  Well, tortoises are actually faster than I ever thought they were and they hide quite well.  Searching for him was like looking for a giant camouflage Easter egg that has legs and can move.  Even with more than a dozen of us searching for him, we could not find Theo anywhere.  We knew he had left our property and was on the land that surrounds the lake, but he was no where to be found.  After a few weeks of looking for Theo, we finally gave up and assumed he was much further from home than we even realized he could go.

Then on Mother’s Day, while we were here in Baltimore, Miriam Grace sent me a picture of Theo!  Lydia was riding horses in the back and there he was grazing in the middle of the path.   She went back to the house to get some help to bring him home.  The kids took a wheel barrow and brought him back to the house.  I’m not so sure he is really happy about being home.  I’m sure he enjoyed tortoise paradise and all the weeds and grass he can eat!!  We know he couldn’t survive out there during the winter when temperatures get really cold, so it is best that he is home where we can keep him safe.  It was an awesome Mother’s Day gift too!!!