Lazy Sunday. 8-3-2025

I left the decision up to Andrea... where do you want to go on Sunday? There were a few options but she decided to save me some gas money and keep it nearby and short. We decided to just hit the Green Snake place, then visit our Snappy friends at the local (to us) cemetery. Short and sweet. But, we realized, going to the Green Snake place for snakes is fine but if you don't see any, you don't see anything. Taking a chance, we headed out and got there at about 9 AM.

Right away, Andrea's choice paid off when she flipped a bubblegum pink Deke!

We looked around for quite a while and saw nothing else. Too late to flip a Green and too early for basking Garters. Before leaving, I managed to flip a pretty Garter on the beach who musked the shit out of me. The musk is very strong in the Garters here. I suspect it has something to do with the partially salt-water things diet.

Go back to your rock, Mr. Stinky!

We headed over to the cemetery from there and upon pulling up to the pond, we saw a large turtle basking next to the island. Must be a Red-ear... but it wasn't! This is the one Yellow-belly here.

We first noticed him here in 2020 and weren't surprised to see him as the species had been available at PetCo. He was medium sized then and has put on a few inches in the last five years!

Of course, Snappers always swim up to say hi (beg for handouts) at this location.

Even the Yellow-belly got down off of his perch to see if anyone had any treats.

This colorful Red-ear is another familiar turtle that likes to be where the action (possible handouts) is.

This Great Blue Heron was striking a classic pose for a nice shot.

A Painted Turtle basking and behaving.

Andrea had fed nothing to the turtles but she was a Snapper magnet. They must sense her love for them. I tried to recreate a picture from June 6th, 2016 that went about as viral as anything I've ever posted. (Note the GBH in the background...)

The original from 2016 ↓

It should be noted that all of these Snappers are absolutely massive, but the last one that came to visit, Two-Dot, is much smaller than the rest.

The guy who feeds them showed up with apples that he put on a stick and coaxed the turtles up. While I think it is detrimental to the turtles in general, I said nothing. It is pretty amazing how unafraid these turtle are but it's going to hurt when someone who likes to eat turtle finds out and gets a few easy meals. Hopefully, that will never happen.

Good call on Andrea's part. We were home before noon (!) and having a lazy and relaxing Sunday afternoon.