5:30 am at wake robin

last night, after a day from july, sleeping was...warm. then add in power surges and a thunder storm. my poor ear, hairline, chin, and a variety of unreachable spots are hot after the visits by black flies, deer flies, mosquitoes, and one bot fly. kinda hard to photograph bug bites!

bad ear

anyway, i headed off to work with no time to spare but 3 miles away i turned around to come home and fetch my camera.

now this is some mama! snapping turtles like the roadsides here because of the nice, sandy soils built up, i think, from years of sanding the roads all winter. maybe 100 feet away was

a younger mama, not quite so large. i was careful not to disturb them (ha! these mamas would just as soon bite off my finger given the opportunity) because i want the eggs to have a chance. already this afternoon i could only spot one egg depository site from the car.

i so want to dig up a few eggs and 1) eat one, 2) raise one here in a bucket of sand in my home, and 3) touch one. i will do none of those things. if you could feel the intense female energy surrounding these ladies as they were working, right there next to speeding traffic, you would be in awe of them, too. this year my first turtle sighting was a painted turtle, yesterday i saw a dead snapper, and now these two, successful egg layers. indicating an auspicious four day weekend.