this is just a quick update to yesterday's turtle episode. in case anybody, besides me, is reading this and is worried about the turtles. my lone reader has put aside her diary here for a time, and i fear is no longer keeping current with my writings. sigh. anyway, we, that is me, ephelba, and boy took the turtles out to a nearby nature preserve that seemed to have a crying lack of turtles and, let them go there. i took scads of pictures, and we got eaten alive by mosquitoes the whole time. but it was so cool to see them make their way out into the wilds of the pond. some of them took off into the water, while others of them hunkered down in the mud. it was great. there was a scary big egrit across the pond. it will probably find and eat some of our turtles. this is sad to think about, but our turtles have had a big boost from us. in all, about 26 turtles hatched out and two eggs were duds. thats a lotta tortise! i am relieved that they are no longer my responsibility. it would have sucked big time if we had screwed up with these eggs. these are very common turtles, still, i would not want to be the one to have messed them up. so to have them hatch out so successfully, and to get them transfered out to the nature center and see them swim off into the sunset... well, it makes me feel like breaking out into a chorus of 'born free.' i can hear it now.