Father turtle

Since I've been a boy there are always box turtles around our house, Terrapene carolina bauri. This morning I just happened to spy several of them grazing on the grass by the woods edge. Of course, I had to go in for a picture!?

Like hunched gnomes scooting around under their carapace hoods they make the whole of our yard their giant salad bowl. Wrinkled, beady eyed, and slow tortoises project the appearance and mannerisms of the ancient. In fact some of them could be ancient. These box turtles can often can live to 70 years if undisturbed, and have been known to live over 100! No wonder I have seen them near our home every summer since I was a boy. They may be older than I am, reappearing each summer just as I always manage to do. I doubt most go far from the house. Box turtles usually stay close to the same area for their entire lives. Seldom do they move farther than a half mile from where they hatched. In fact if you move a box turtle from it's patch and place it elsewhere it is said it will continue to try to find its way back home its entire life. So, leave them be. They don't make great pets anyway.

They are more useful around a vegetable or rose garden anyway where they may slurp up your slugs, munch on sprouting fungi, and clean the soil of weeds. Then again they may munch on your carrots and take a bite out of your tomatoes too. You see they are omnivores, they eat it all. Roots, berries, slugs, eggs, insects, worms, rodents, snakes, flowers, nearly anything, though ironically they don't like green leaves. Trust me from many short lives box turtle pets as a kid, I know. Some people will eat box turtles too. Many Native Americans feasted on turtle and in much of the South you can still find 'cooter' stew. Be wary though, box turtles eat many fungi and mushrooms poisonous to us, but harmless to them. Their flesh has been the last meal for many an unwary diner it seems....

In the Northeast through parts of New England and the Great Lakes box turtles no longer exist or are found very rarely where they once were known to flourish. Many Native Americans, especially the Iroquois Confederation held the shells of the box turtle in such high esteem for ritual and decoration purposes they still no longer remain in these areas. Being so peculiar and slow to grow and reproduce it is no surprise. Throughout divergent cultures around the world the turtle has had religious and ritual significance as a symbol of creation. In some Native American folklore the turtle is associated with the great creator, carrying the world on its back. Almost universally it is associated with longevity (time) and stability.

So maybe I could see our box turtles as symbols. Symbols representative of time and stability, symbols of home.