You just never know what you're going to run across while you're on your way to an appointment. As a born and raised city girl, I am still surprised by the wildlife that shows itself along the highway, but sadly a lot of that wildlife ends up in the middle of the road. In the rural areas, it's not uncommon to see dead animals that have been hit and killed by a passing car. But sometimes, one can escape that terrible fate.
Yesterday, on the way to a consultation, I was driving down a country highway toward my destination and I saw something quite large sitting smack in the middle of my lane. Like most drivers, I positioned my wheels so that the object would stay between them when I passed.
At first it looked like a partially deflated ball, but as I drove up to the object, I realized it was a large turtle! I could see that it was still alive, and the poor thing was ducking its head for cover into its shell as my car passed over. I immediately careened off the road into the embankment and backed up. Then I had to stand there in agony as several more cars passed over it before I could pick it up.
It's hard to tell from the picture, but it was quite large: almost a foot in length, and about 9 inches across. This was a beautiful turtle, looked possibly like a slider of some kind (didn't have a hinged shell and had webbed back feet) and was obviously a male from its long claws. I didn't know where it came from, didn't see any bodies of water nearby and didn't have time to look around, so I put him in the back seat of my car and drove to my appointment.
Turns out the potential client I was meeting with worked at Berea College, and was also an animal lover. When I told him about the turtle, he suggested that we take it to the Berea College Farm, since it has a large pond there.
As soon as we got to the farm and started walking around the edge of the pond, Mr. Turtle got excited. He began to kick out his back legs and poke his nose out for a sniff. I found a nice place next to the water and set him down. I was hoping he would come out of his shell for a nicer look at the markings on his head, but he wouldn't oblige, so we left him alone to explore his new surroundings.
Then my client took me over to meet the pigs. I had never seen a full-grown pig in person before and could not get over how large they were! They must have been the size of a small sofa!
They were very interested in us and came right over to say hello and get a drink of water. They seem to be very social creatures; they were snorting and nuzzling each other the whole time. I even got to pet one of them - wow; they have very thick, stiff hairs, almost like gigantic cat whiskers.
The college does raise animals for the sale of meat at their Farmers Market. But the pig's pens were enormous, about the size of a double-wide bowling lane. There were only 1 - 3 animals in each pen so they had lots of room to run around, and they seemed to be very happy under the circumstances.
How wild that if it weren't for Mr. Turtle that I wouldn't have gotten to meet the pigs! So the next time you are driving down a rural road and see a fellow earthling stranded in the middle of the road, I hope you stop and give it a hand. You never know where it will take you or who else you will meet!
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