First thing I did after waking this morning was to sit down and start working. First thing Irene did this morning was to head outside. I think she made the better choice.

But at least I got to share in the reward.

Shortly after I’d started working, the phone rang, and since it was so early, I thought, “Uh-oh, what’s wrong?” Luckily, no one had died. It was Irene calling to tell me to quickly get outside to see the box turtle wandering around our yard. “Quickly” because a turtle can move quite fast when it knows it’s being watched, and if I wanted to catch a glimpse of it, I couldn’t dawdle.

Check out the cutie below.

This was a smaller one than we saw last week—maybe only five inches long.

Irene is now one box turtle ahead of me this season (the score is 3-2), as she saw one earlier in the week about a mile down the road. Last year, we saw so many through the spring and summer (14? 16? 18?) that we lost count. I’m hoping this year proves to be the same.