The Turtle Rises from the Deep

The girls and I went shopping this morning, our usual route of Walmart and Books-A-Million. At Walmart, we bought garishly bright running clothes to motivate ourselves to keep up with our mile a day goal. The girls were also excited to find Mini Brands on clearance; they each bought two with some of their money. Lucia also bought a journal.

We bought a bunch of books at Books-A-Million, then headed home. It was incredibly hot. We had lunch outside then read in our hammocks. While we were reading, it began to rain--but we stayed completely dry under the dense canopy of trees. But then it began raining harder, and then pouring, and the rain broke through the trees as well as our coccooned hammocks and we had to run to the house. There was much screaming and hysterical laughter.

When the rain stopped, we went for a run, Andrew too. It was much too hot for this activity but we persevered. Afterward, we went straight to the pond in our running clothes. The kids floated and swam. I floated and also, briefly, rolled off my float into the water to cool off. Then I couldn't get back onto my float and had to swim to the dock, horror horror horror, algae and vines tangling around my legs, etc. 

A bit later, while I dried off on a chair on shore, the kids were standing on the dock, pulling themselves along, when they began screaming bloody murder. I knew immediately what was wrong: the turtle had made an appearance. And from the hysterical sounds of it, it wasn't the smallish black turtle we'd seen in the yard but a much, much larger turtle, likely one of the Elders. The girls were simultaneously terrified and capitvated. They stood for a long time watching it. Andrew, who had been up at the house and had heard the screams, came back down to the pond. The kids pulled the dock to shore, picked him up, and they all drifted back to the turtle, who was still idling on the surface. Eventually it sank back into the deep.

I can't believe I had actually been SWIMMING WITHOUT A FLOAT right where the enormous turtle was mere minutes before it appeared. WILDLIFE. 

This sighting may well have halted any future pond swimming. I mean, I might float around, but I'm definitely not getting INTO the water again. I wonder if the kids will be the same. "We could have lost our fingers!" Greta yelled from the dock. She was pleased to be the one to see it "rise from the deep." There is simply no way to get around the utter horror of a pond full of snapping turtles.