Turtle Thursday

Gabe is headed to St Louis this afternoon with a good friend of mine Carlie, her husband Joe and son Jalen. They are going to be staying at the Four Seasons with a view of the Arch and going to Six Flags. What a lucky little bugger. He was super excited to go but also a little anxious to leave for a few days as this will be his first vacation with a friend.. He truly is a Momma's boy. Anyways as John is napping on the couch ,I am feeding Jack and watching Sixteen Candles (classic Molly Ringwald). My phone chimes with a text...its Carlie telling me they are an hour away and the boys are being really good. She says to check my email..so I do and she has sent a picture of the boys hanging out in the back seat watching a movie, as well as playing their handheld Nintendo's .. She had sent the picture to my email via her phone...All this technology! When I was his age my brothers and I were driving each other insane with elbows touching one another and complaining about not having much room. Someone would always be crying an hour or so into each trip. My dad would say "If you kids don't stop , I will pull this car over and give you something to cry about", and he did! Ive tried that statement myself but never really stopped the car. Here is the pic I received.

So now my turtle story.. Every day I walk on my lunch break. There is a beautiful park right next to my work and it has a paved walkway around the lake. This park is full of wildlife.. Birds, Ducks, Geese, Squirrels, rabbits,Blue Herons, and of course Turtles!! Everyday I see at least 15 turtles swimming near the bank or jumping from the rocks when they see me. Today I was walking with a co-worker and we noticed a pretty big turtle bobbing up and down and and a baby turtle next to it sort of just waiting.. So we watch and then realize he is stuck. We figure it out and his leg is caught in fishing line and that fishing line is attached to a Christmas tree. The city submerges a few trees every so often as habitat for fish for the winter..Anyways I started to get really worried.. I was watching this turtle drown and thinking that the little one is the turtles little baby. I decide something has to be done I can not let this turtle die and not in front of the baby. I run up to the Lab and find a sampling pole that I would use to sample at the Kansas River...does not reach...So I call the park ranger and he says they have this problem sometimes and he will be out , but it will be at least an HOUR.... No way...I am not having it.. My co-workers at this point think I'm nuts!!! So between my walking partner and I , we decide that maybe a rope and some type of metal hook thingy will do the trick. I find both and we head back down..The turtle was still bobbing and has become really tired at this point.. I was so worried and luckily after only 4 throws of our little tool we freed the turtle and he made it safely to the bank.. I was sooo thrilled.. Hope he/she is doing well tonight. That wasn't the first time I had seen a animal tied up in fishing line there at the lake. One of the duckling that were just born a few weeks ago had some wrapped around its neck. A guy at work had to cut some off the leg of a blue bird stuck to a tree branch.. And just about a month ago some %#@& had thrown a tire in the lake and a big turtle had got caught in it and drowned.. Each day I see bottles, cans and trash that people have thrown at the bank while fishing and it just makes my blood boil, especially now. I wish they would just walk it to the trash can so that some little critter doesn't get hurt!!!!