Whenever I get to despairing that winter will never end, I think about the life of a painted turtle. If they were thoughtful creatures, they would surely be depressed, spending months stuck in the cold, dark mud at the bottom of the pond.
I believe they get poor TV reception down there.
It was just as well that I couldn't carry out my initial pond clean-out dream. The pond has been there long enough for big trees to grow up all around it. Occasionally, one dies and falls headfirst into the brown water. Some limbs are left sticking out untidily.
Floating invasive plants, milweed, were something I wanted to eradicate. Several solutions were offered, the worst one being a pump that would run non-stop to aerate the water. Solar-powered fountains apparently would only work on a decorative pond, the kind that is a yard water feature. My water feature is the Grand River.
As it turns out, the pond with its muddy bottom is the perfect environment for painted turtles. Last year, they emerged on the eleventh of March, after an extra-wintry winter.
Any day now, they will crawl up onto the convenient limbs and sun themselves. They are not seen on cloudy days.
Last spring, when I was hacking out the fence close to the pond, they got used to me. They stopped sliding back into the water every time I got close. It was only when they were getting on or off a limb that I could see their bright orange and black bottom shells.
In the summer, Beau barked at a turtle digging a hole in the ground to lay eggs. I rushed Mr. Dog to the house so she could finish her business. Then I marked the spot with sticks. After what the Internet told me was the correct gestation period, I kept checking back, but I never saw any hatch.
Another year, I came across a baby painted turtle. I carried it down to the pond and set it on the damp leaves on the shore. It quickly headed for the water and swam away. It was too cute.
Although it's not a big pond, it does support nine of the painted turtles. I love to sit in the lawn chair with a mason jar of iced coffee and watch them through binoculars.
There was a muskrat that swam by the sunning turtles. Although usually quick to take a dive, they didn't slide off into the water. So it appears they are good neighbors. Who knows, maybe they all snack on the milweed.
Now that the cows no longer use the pond, the turtles have a peaceful community, with no observable fighting among the males for dominance, a rarity in the animal and human world.
What's strange is that during the summer, the painted turtles are no longer seen. I believe they instinctively make their way overland to the nearest tatoo parlor, where they get their orange patterned underbellies touched up for another year.
