wildlife mission

When we got to my parents' for dinner last night, the boys were greeted by an unfamiliar welcoming committee: a turtle, up on the porch. I never got the specifics on why the turtle was there, but the boys were intrigued.


Just before dinner, my dad loaded the boys, Mike, and Loni up in the back of the truck and headed out to the ditch to return poor Yertle to his natural habitat. [Mike: "They call that a ditch? It's like a mini-river!"]


Max was unimpressed with the open-air transport, but Loni's wildly blowing hair provided some measure of protection from the elements.


The boys would have loved more time to play on the banks of the ditch and in the adjacent corn field, but as soon as Mike stepped out of the truck, violent swarmy masses of mosquitos ascended from their grassy hiding places. [Ed. note: What's with these bugs, anyway? Seriously. Yesterday we saw a mosquito as big as my pinky! We couldn't kill it with a rolled-up magazine!] So the boys had to make do with watching from the relative safety of the truck while my dad sent the turtle home.


Happily for Liam, Papaw brought him a souvenir: an ear of corn straight from the field!