Last week, while cleaning my front yard, I came upon this juvenile turtle, all tucked into the mulch. I suppose it's an Eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina); the kids named her Shelly Barnaby the 5th, as she is the latest of several little turtles we've come across around our house since we moved in.
Although we named her, she won't be our pet. As I always explain to the kids, wild animals belong in the wild. To avoid her being exposed to pesticides that some neighbors (and even the HOA) may use, I relocated her to the back yard, where she can easily migrate to the woods in the back of the house, where there's a nice, quiet branch of the Little Patuxent river.
Every early Spring I make sure to check my lawn and yard for little critters, before mowing, as they can be easily overlooked and run over by lawnmowers. I strongly recommend that. I also strongly encourage anyone who finds one of them to just let them be or relocate them to a safer place. I just saw a news article on an Eastern box turtle who was kept as a pet for 50 years and developed all sorts of health issues. Heartbreaking: https://bit.ly/rockalina
