A boys adventure

Alex has really been having a blast here at our new house.  He has made some really good friends.  God knew that it was time for Alex to learn how to have more than one friend at a time and we had no idea when we purchased our new house how many boys there where on this street alone and that all of these boys that Alex would make friends with are good boys that he can really learn a lot from.

Thursday, Alex had an early release day from school and I went to get him from school as I now do everyday. (Alex is back at his very first school he attended when we moved here and for him this is yet another wonderful blessing and gift from Heavenly Father.  We all love Clear Creek Elementary School.)
Alex and his friend Glenn went to the field behind our house and clear on the other side of it is a canal that is full of water. Next thing I know Glenn and Alex are walking back with a white Styrofoam cooler really slow.
My Motherly instincts tell me to stop them at the edge of the yard and ask them what they have before they got any closer. (We have a lot of snakes here and the last thing I wanted was them to bring a snake into the yard.) They tell me that they have a baby turtle.  So Glenn and Alex take the turtle to Glenn's house.  The next day Glenn, Alex, Andrew, Kent, Shent and Alex and the aquirinum with the turtle come to the house.  All the boys ask me if I will let them all keep the turtle here.  After talking to each of them and having each of the sign a contract that their parents saw as well it was agreed that Alex could keep the community turtle at our house and the rest of the boys were responsible to make sure we have food to feed it.

First thing on the list was that they were to find out what type of turtle it was.  They had problems trying to find out the exact species, but Alex said from the beginning that it was an alligator snapping turtle.  I really need to start listening to him when it comes to the names of animals outside.  He loves to watch the animal channel and discovery channel on tv and I realized that he actually does learn a lot from them.  Which was proven today.  Jon went online early this morning when he got home from work to see what type of turtle this little guy was so that we could make sure that we had the right food for him.  Low and behold Alex was exactly right.  This turtle was in fact an alligator snapping turtle.  Now this was really neat to me.  We looked on the map and found out that this type of turtle was not even supposed to be in our region that it is mainly found in far eastern Texas.  That more than likely with all the rains we have had that it came here via the rivers and canals. 

Now the down side to all of this is that we also learned that this species of turtle is what is called a threatened species and it is highly illegal to own or capture this type of turtle unless you have a permit for this type of turtle.  This type of turtle has been known to get to be about 15" to 26" round and weigh up to 250 lbs.

When we read this we decided that we would wait for Alex to get up and explain this to both Glenn and him and then we would have them take the turtle back to where they found it so that no one gets into any trouble.

Tiffany decided that since Glenn could not go that she and Jirah would help Alex take the turtle back to its family.  Alex had told us that there were several of them where he got this and even a very large adult one as well. Although Alex was sad that he could not keep the turtle he said that the turtle really did need to go live with its Mom and was willing to take it back.  Jon and I talked and decided that if Alex really wants to have a turtle that we will be getting him one from the pet store for his birthday.  When we told Alex this he was very happy.