To
Homespun-Country Kitchen's
Turtles and Tortoises Page!
from Jim
LUKE, THE DESERT TORTOISE
One
day in the spring of 1954, our next-door neighbor called
over the fence to come and see what she had found. It
turned out to be a young Desert Tortoise, maybe 3 inches
in diameter. It was found walking across Los Feliz Blvd.,
which even then was a heavily traveled street in Los
Angeles. She had rescued it and since we already had a
menagerie of pets, she gave it to me. We named it Luke,
the next in a line of pet turtles named Matthew and Mark,
who had been the short-lived imported green pet-shop type
of turtles.
We built a pen for Luke in a grassy area in the backyard.
He seemed to like the dichondra and the "sheep
sour" grasses and he was very partial to lettuce. I
used to give him rides in my toy motorboat in the fish
pond, but he did not go in the water. He was a total
vegetarian and completely harmless. He liked to be gently
stroked on the head when being held.
Around
Labor Day he would begin digging a hole for hibernation.
It was not a safe prospect to allow him to remain outside
for the winter, due to possums, etc., that would come
down occasionally from Griffith Park. We found an oval
plastic pan and placed a clay flower pot in it. He would
go into the pot like a burrow and we placed this is a
dark corner of my bedroom closet. He would sleep there in
hibernation until about St. Patrick's Day and then
awakened and was ready to go back outside.
Fourteen years later, he was about 14 inches long and
thriving. LaRae and I were on our way to get married in
Lake Tahoe. She was terrified of turtles as a result of a
traumatic experience with a snapping turtle when she was
a
small child. We put Luke in his pan and pot into the back
area of her VW bug to take him to my younger cousins who
lived at Tahoe. It was the end of March, warm, and a long
trip, so, on the road at 70+ mph, he started stirring and
scratching at the pot with his nails. LaRae nearly went
through the roof!
Tortoises can live to be up to 100 years old, so he's
probably still alive and kicking somewhere.
