Feeding the Turtles

Living in Florida is different from so many other places in the US.  But it’s not just the outrageous heat and humidity that separate us, it’s the wildlife that you can find in your own backyard.  Week after week, you hear stories about people finding alligators on golf courses, ridiculously large snakes in pools, and two days ago I had to swerve while driving to avoid hitting a huge iguana with my car.  Only in Florida.  Luckily most of the wildlife in our neighborhood is pretty tame.  While most kids grow up feeding leftover bread to ducks, here, we save our spare bread for the turtles in the pond in our community.  It’s one of Greenleigh’s favorite things to do on our evening walks.
There was a bit of a learning curve at the beginning – she would just throw the entire loaf in the pond and hit the turtles on the head.  Then because it was an entire loaf with rounded edges, the turtles wouldn’t be able to bite into it and would end up pushing it around the pond until it dissolved.  Funny to watch, but no doubt, frustrating for the turtles.  It took a while, but we eventually convinced Greenleigh to break the bread up into (much) smaller pieces.They very soon became Greenleigh’s biggest fans.