Friday, May 27, 2011

WHAT DO A TURTLE AND A STRAWBERRY HAVE IN COMMON?

There's a story behind this turtle card, but a turtle and a strawberry don't really have anything in common except that I visited my parents and grandmother this past Tuesday, took a strawberry cake to my grandmother, and had a little excitement over a turtle.  When I arrived at my parents' house, my mother was pruning an overgrown bush.  After cutting a lot of the low limbs, she said, "Oh, look!  Here's a turtle that I didn't even remember was here!  I guess daddy will have to paint this one."  In their landscaping, they have two large turtles to which daddy recently gave a fresh coat of paint, and that's why mother said that he would need to paint this one because it's shell was quite faded.  As a matter of fact, it looked so much like a big rock to me that I didn't even know that I was looking at the turtle she'd found!  In retrospect, a painted turtle that had been covered by an overgrown bush would not have been faded by the sun, but you know what they say about hindsight.  Anyway, I had my back turned to my mother when she screamed, and her scream signaled an alarm in me that meant, "Critter (probably a slitherer)!!!!!!  Get away . . . FAST!!!!" and that's what I tried to do.  In retrospect (again), I know that I should have made sure that my mother was okay.  When she had attempted to lift the turtle, one of its legs, with a clawed foot, kicked at her and bunkered down, not wanting to be moved.  As far as I know, it was a snapping turtle, and it was aggressive and not happy to have been disturbed!  I'm not fond of critter encounters, but I also never knew that I should take caution around a turtle!  I think there's just no place for me in the great outdoors!  Daddy managed to get Mr. Snappy onto the E-Z-Go, and mother and I rode with him to the pond where he convinced Mr. Snappy to dive in.  I never thought I would see the day when a turtle would lurch and aggressively challenge an adult male, but that's where the hoe came in handy.  Whew!  It was an interesting time, and I was a useless spectator . . . except for serving as Event Photographer.  At the end of the day, we had dinner and strawberry cake for dessert.  The next day, I made the turtle card to send to my parents, and the strawberry card was made for my grandmother.  BTW, Stampin' Up! products used in the making of these two cards are the button, linen thread, and hemp twine.  ETA:  I forgot to mention that I used the Square Lattice embossing folder on the turtle's shell.  How on earth could I forget that?  I use that folder all the time!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Oh my goodness! Your turtle story reminded me of my father and a HUGE snapping turtle...the turtle had decided to cross a highway and was stuck in the middle so my dad stopped, put the blinkers on, got out a 2X4X8 and tried to help it across the road! I just remember the turtle quickly crawling up the plank snapping at my dad and thinking "I thought they said turtles were slow". lol I had never seen such a large turtle, and eventually Dad got it off the highway. Thanks for the memory! :)