All Through Except For The Waiting

  Sometimes things are well worth the wait no matter how long that wait is.  The wait happening here on the Bayou can end within 50 days or take as long as 125 days.  It all depends upon the heat.  If we continue to have cooler nights and mornings, things will take much longer than if we suddenly jump into midsummer.  Optimally, 50 to 60 days will see us through the longest part.  I just have to be patient.

  My duration time is not entirely "my" wait.  Earlier today, Son was cooling off a bit from caulking the new siding.  He caulks, I paint.  We were both feeling the heat of the noonday sun so decided a lemonade break was in order.  He wandered about the shady area back behind the canebrake before he came across something rather interesting.  On the highest part of the hill back there, a Cooter turtle had decided "her" time was due.  She dug her nest and deposited up to two dozen eggs in the bottle shaped hole before ambling back down to the Bayou.  There are a number of Cooters and slider turtles that live in the brackish water where the Bayou meets the creek.  Mama Cooter had made that slow trek through the marsh, up the steep hill, dug her nest in hard clay, deposited her eggs, covered the nest and then was laboring to make her way back down to the water.  Son found her just after she had left the nest.

  Poor Mama Cooter was drying out quickly in the noonday sun.  She was covered with a thick layer of clay and was exhausted after her chore.  As much as I wanted to help her back into the water, I knew that I should not intervene.  It was best that she continue as she has every year for probably the past ten or maybe twenty years.  She knew what she was doing and needed no help from me.  She was a large turtle with her carapace being nigh on 15 inches and I am sure she was quite hefty!  

  Son and I watched the turtle for a bit.  He called attention to the fact that her shell showed the ravages of being attacked at some point. Perhaps a young alligator or even a coyote had attacked her causing the abrasions and cracks.  Despite this, she was determined to lay her eggs and insure that a new generation of Cooters would inhabit the Bayou.  Good Mama.  Now all that is left is the waiting and the hopes that the little turtles make it down to the water without being attacked by a predator.  Usually, only one or two will survive the first year.  It is treacherous for little tykes on the Bayou.