Mother's Day......my turtle adventure

As most of you know, I had to work on Mother's Day. Not a big deal really since both of my son's had to work. And then, of course, you know that Wade came by the house later and dropped the bombshell that he's getting married on Memorial Day. So that made my Mother's Day special. Well it was pretty dead here at work on Sunday. Only about 4 employees came in to work. So I just drove around in circles most of the day, making sure the parking lots were secure. Plus I had to walk the inside of the building to make sure there were no water leaks, fires, doors unlocked, stuff like that. From top to bottom of this building is a two mile walk. So it did me good to get out of the car and walk. Plus we also have to check gauges in the "Chiller Room" which has the water chillers and boilers. We have to make sure the gauges are where they are supposed to be and none of them are off the charts. So that broke up part of the monotony of the day. The most interesting part of the day was the turtle that was determined to head west.

I found him wandering down the road at the back of the building. I thought maybe he wanted into the orange groves. So I put him on the grass.
I took a drive around the whole building to check out the parking lots and when I got back around to the back, the turtle was walking down the road. He was heading for a busy street. I didn't want him to get run over so I put him in the back of the truck and drove him to the gated part of our orange grove. I had to actually open a gate and carry him into the groves. It was quite aways from the street.
Here he is riding in the back of the truck. He was none to happy to be there and even unhappier that there was no room to move around.

Of course I wanted to make sure the turtle didn't go wandering again. So I drove around the building once and drove near the grove. No turtle. I drove around the building again and low and behold the turtle was walking west again. I guess some sixth sense was telling him he needed to go that way. So I just decided to leave him alone and let nature takes it course. When I drove around the building again and came back (yes, my curiosity got the best of me), I could not see him. I never saw him again. I hope he made to wherever he needed to be. By the way, this turtle is a gopher turtle. They do bite, they jump and they can stretch their necks all the way round. I was lucky this guy liked me and didn't try to bite me. He did jump for me though.

Now on a different note I want to share this really neat story about a mom's special daughter and what she did for her mother's birthday/Mother's day.

The mom works at my work location. She was celebrating her 50th birthday on Mother's Day. Her daughter came in the Monday before Mother's day with 10 roses in a HUGE vase. She also had a note from her brother to his Mom explaining 10 reason why he loved his mom. I was to call her mom and let her know flowers were here for her but couldn't tell her who dropped them off. On Tuesday, the daughter shows up with 10 more roses to add to the first 10, this time with a note from her father telling his wife 10 things he loved about her. On Wednesday, 10 more roses with a letter from the lady's mother with 10 reasons why she is such a special daughter. Thursday, 10 more roses and another note. Not sure who this one was from. I was at lunch this time when the daughter showed up. I did get to call Mom to come down and get her roses. And of course, everyday she'd want to know who dropped off the flowers and I would have to play dumb. On Friday, the daughter comes in with 10 more roses, the final 10 to make 50 (for her 50th birthday, get it). She tells me to just call her mom down, she is going to give these to her personally. It was such an awesome thing to do. The HUGE vase was so each day the roses could be added to it. They let me take their picture as they were leaving. I think this is one of the most awesome things I have ever seen a family do. And I'm glad I got to be a small part of it.