Breakfast in the Box, Baby Torts for Baby Luann

Rho, this also shows their size, as a quarter is in with them. There are three but the other one, probably Milagro, went off by herself to rest and digest all the flowers, of which she always eats the most. I think I'll change her name to Hoggy.

PS. Obviously I can't hear while operating the camera, and we are still not on the same page about the sex of these little fellows. In truth, the sex if these little creatures can't be determined until the shell starts to reform in the rear half. Lucky our older teenage tort, was about 8 or 9 years old when that happened. Neither of his parents cut him any slack as far as feeding, he had to fight for his bits of corn and bok choy so we just fed him on his own until his mother, the gentler of the two adults allowed him to "dine at her table".

DH puts out food for them in the mornings, weighted down by some old bricks. Churchy, the father, named for Cherchez la femme in the Pogo comic strip but my little five year old sister couldn't wrap her tongue around that first word, it came out Churchy. And, yes, he's about 55 years old, too. We thought older, but we were able to tack an age on him a few years ago after a picture of Churchy and little sister turned up.

Anyway, Churchy is very aggressive toward all other tortoises since he met up with a MONSTER male, who was as big as a turkey platter, at a friend's house. This monster just pushed poor Churchy every which way and flipped him mercilessly. Torta, the little female was oblivious to it all. But Churchy was a little baby when found and he never was, shall we say, properly socialized. So his shock of socialization never left his reptilian mind. He is just a little brute now.

Since DH and I are THE dominant tortoises, we just pick him up and sling him up in the rose bed to cool him off. It's nice and soft up there and he likes to eat the roses anyway.

Well, good night. More stories some other time. There are a few.