And then I rescued a turtle.

I guess I'm a wildlife warrior as I have rescued two non-mammal this week.  Chris and I were walking Charger in the neighborhood when we saw a giant turtle in the middle of the road.

We have a lot of little ponds here, so we think it left one to get to the other side. This guy would have never made it across the road with the traffic.

Luckily, Charger had not pooped, so I had two doggy poop bags. Now I tried some scare tactics to get it to run, only for it to hide even more. When I tried to move it, the backlegs stuck in the ground.  Meanwhile my ever brave brother and dog just stood there laughing/staring inquisitively.  Ever helpful Chris was yelling at me to just pick it up, but it was quite heavy.  I actually thought it may have already been run over and didn't want it's guts to spill out.  Chris assured me he saw no blood and it probably would not be moving if it did get run over.  So after a minute, I pulled it off the ground and ran the turtle across the street towards the next pond.  Off it ran!  Once Charger saw that it was actually not a rock she starting barking like crazy.

I felt good.  I have seen far too many turtles dead on the side of the road. This one I was able to identify as a Florida softshell turtle.  May it live long and prosper.
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On a side note: Charger gets her ovaries taken out on Wednesday.  When asked, my dad would rather have me spayed than Charger.

I speak Parseltongue

I find that the most wildlife I see since living in Florida ends up either in my backyard or dead in my pool. Recently a baby snake got stuck in the pool.  The poor thing swam around for days trying to get out.

Sadly the last time this happen, my dad got to the snake first and bashed its brains out.  I favor living things, so I felt guilty that I did not react sooner.

Today I got my redemption. Again, the poor baby snake was swimming for days, finally it was in a position for me to catch. So today, I got a bucket and told the snake "come with me if you want to live." Without a blink it swam into the bucket. I kindly asked the snake not to jump out until I was ready and thank god it didn't. 

When I got to the grassy area of my backyard, I told the snake. "On three, get out of the bucket and preferably snake away from my feet." I put the bucket down and in a flash he was gone! I felt really good for helping the snake out. Hopefully, it won't come back.

My mom was surprised how smoothly it all went. Now in hindsight, it probably is not the best idea to handle snakes in buckets without a glove and in flip flops, especially baby snakes. I can't seem to identify what type of snake it was online. Meh, a life saved I suppose.