Turtles.

I discovered a few years ago that, when you have birds, people give you birds. This summer I learned that birds aren't the only thing that works like that. It all started when I began teaching my annual Animals and Art class, and got back in touch with a family who brings in their reptiles every year. If you are a weird and interesting person who owns a lot of strange animals, you end up making friends with other weird and interesting people who own a lot of strange animals. Then, when someone tosses you another unwanted creature, you have a whole network of people who might like to add it to their menagerie.

My friends have tortoises and had divided their enclosure to make a space for the box turtle, but she had been sitting in a corner and refusing to eat, and they weren't sure what else to do with her. After reading quite a bit about box turtles, I still had a few questions, so I called the awesome turtle sanctuary in town. I've read about the sanctuary a lot and was dying to visit, but it has been closed to the public for a while.

So we made plans to go visit and I started building a turtle enclosure in my yard. In the interest of being sustainable, green, and cheap, I asked the local Freecycle mailing list for some old boards. I was immediately offered a few 2x4's and also a second box turtle.

When you love exotic animals and someone offers you one they clearly have no clue how to care for, the answer is always "yes". Freed from a life of boredom in a plastic tub with a small dusting of potting soil, Turtle #2 immediately took to a life of burrowing in the yard and foraging for fruit and bugs. I took the turtles to the sanctuary with me and learned that they were both girls, and I got to see all the wonderful turtles, tortoises, snakes, lizards, and birds at the sanctuary. When I described my turtles' enclosure and diet, they offered me a couple of boy turtles to keep them company.

And that is how I ended up with four three-toed box turtles. They are a lot of fun to watch, they each have distinct personalities and favorite spots to hang out. It turns out that Turtle #1 is just grumpy by nature and prefers to spend her time hiding. Now that we have convinced her to each something other than peaches, she has relaxed quite a bit. She still immediately turns into a box whenever I pick her up, though.

My Cats are Stupid: Exhibit D

The Hellions are not allowed outside for a variety of reasons. We live in a very urban area with a lot of traffic, I don't want them getting into fights or picking up parasites or diseases, and I want to protect the local wildlife; however the primary reason is that the Hellions are far too stupid to survive out there for more than five minutes. They have had brief encounters with the great outdoors, I take them outside on leashes, and once in a while they escape. Right after we moved to our current place they pried open a window. I came home and found them in the driveway.

It's worth noting that our front yard and therefore our front door are enclosed inside a chainlink fence. Instead of a backyard there is another house with another family, and the driveway runs alongside our house and back to the garage that we share. The cats had emerged from a window facing the driveway and once they descended to the ground they could not get back in. Tortie Hellion was sprawled on the driveway so I just crammed her back in through the window. Tabby Hellion was frantically running in circles, and when I went to grab him he fled in terror towards the only recognizable route back into the house: the front door.

Of course, there was a chainlink fence between him and the door, and neither of the Hellions is particularly good at solving problems. After running facefirst into the fence he backed up and tried again, then ran a few feet down the fence and did the same thing. I watched him bash his way all the way around the fence and then followed him while he bolted around the house. Once he was within sight of the front door he again ran facefirst into the fence and repeated the entire performance. While he was dashing around the house for a third try I helpfully opened the gate, allowing him to reach the front door and run indoors to safety.

Of course, the first thing he did was try to jump out the window again.

My Cats are Stupid: Exhibit B

Every morning I wake up to a chorus of meowing and feed the cats. This is pretty easy to accomplish.

I usually give them more kibble than they can eat, so they can nibble on it later if they get hungry. When Evilcat is full she wanders off to lurk horribly elsewhere. When the Hellions are full, they attempt to bury their food.

It is very difficult to convince my poor, stupid cats that they do not need to bury their dishes for safekeeping. Anything movable on the table is likely to end up covering a cat dish. A total lack of things to drag around does not dissuade the Hellions even slightly. They will cheerfully continue to air-scratch around the dish until the inevitable happens...

Despite this happening on an almost daily basis, the Hellions have yet to learn that pretend-burying their food makes the food go away. This is also why I must keep Awesomedog's food allergies in mind when buying cat food.