Spring... the beautiful, yet tragic season.

Oh yes, the colors of spring are creeping forth in all their splendid herpetological arrays. In other words: The critters they are a movin'.

I caught this beautiful red rat snake right down the road, not 100 yards from the house. This one is about as long as Caleb, as you can see.

The patterned belly kind of looks like what is called 'Indian corn', hence the local common name, corn snake.

Levi is holding a box turtle, also caught while attempting to cross the road.

Here is a barking tree frog that Caleb caught on the dock of my parent's pond. Alas, the frog has since died due to...well let's just say that boys are kinda hard on frogs around here. The snake has already been set loose and the turtle will be shortly. Which brings me to a tragic, but true, story.

Sometime last year we got one of those new fangled disposable toilet brush thingies. So we took the old brush and threw it away. The old container that held the brush was somewhat decorative, so we put it on the back porch, up on a porch rail.

Imagine my surprise about a month ago when Caleb discovered (or perhaps remembered) this inside the container:

Now, one thing you can be sure of when you find a turtle on a fence post (or inside a toilet brush container, in this case)...the critter didn't get there by himself. I don't know when it happened, but sometime last year someone in this family apparently captured this poor reptile and put him away for safe keeping. Then, as suggested by the evidence, they forgot about him. How it was that we never smelled him rotting away is beyond me. All I know for sure is that he died a terrible death. Heat stroke, dehydration, consumption by scavenger beetles, all that.

RIP little box turtle.

On the bright side, the shell, skull, and skeleton are all there, though not exactly intact. With some glue, skill, and time, however, I believe we can reconstruct this turtle's frame and have a really cool addition to our collection of oddities. Maybe a knick-knack for the tree house.

Peace.