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Seems like all the pests’ names start with R .. and of course with Bertha still missing and now Mr Tibbs in the hospital tub (w/ antibiotics daily) there is, of course, no real targets in our pond other than the feeder goldfish but apparently that may be enough as the raccoon I chased off the other night appeared again .. and this time disappeared under the deck and wouldn’t come out. I waited too long to seal it up and now I’ll have to take up deck boards to chase him out. I suspect he’s actually hiding out in the cavity under the hot tub (nice and warm there) hopefully he’s just exploring and not a nesting mom. I’m really hoping I don’t see Bertha’s remains under there.

Mr Tibbs had just abrasions and “puffy eyes” so they sent her home with liquid antibiotics (10 days worth) and the vet administered an ointment to her eyes. I’ll have to be pretty careful since her beak is pretty sharp and she easily cut the cotton swab in half. She now gets a pampered stay in the sun room, safe from Rocky with a nice heat lamp.

Nothing but water woes today. Elena comes home and eventually notices that one of our hoses has burst outside and we have quite the mud pit. Then after dinner when we get home I notice that the falls are running at about 10% of capacity or so .. but the pump is running.

I figured it was just crud in the intake but when I turn it off and stick my hand down there what do I find but a small turtle shell wedged in front. She (yes it really is a her named Mr Tibbs) seems kinda beat up so we put her in a hospital tub and left a light on for her. She’s moving a bit but not quite spry. I’m hoping that the vet can see us in the morning to check her out.

Its strange, this is a skimmer setup with a net skimmer on the intake above the pump so the only thing we can figure is that she was climbing on the rocks above and either fell in or thought it was a nice cave. We had left the top off while we diagnose some of the leaks and the measuring stick across the front intake was getting in the way of the top. We’ll have to fit a couple of bars across the intake and leave the cover on the skimmer from now on.

It was getting warmer and it seemed like the turtles were getting used to the pond. Bertha was basking most days and would take earthworms from my hand.

However we haven’t seen Bertha in over a week .. the last time I saw her she was a bit further away from the pond than normal (about 6′ up the hill) and then she scuttled back into the pond .. probably the fastest I’ve ever seen her move. That was Monday over a week ago and we haven’t seen her since. Seattle weather being what it is was so spotty that there really wasn’t much basking weather so it wouldn’t be too unusual if she wasn’t out.

Hopefully she didn’t heard the “call of the wild” from male turtles in nearby Phantom Lake (about 3 blocks with plenty of wildlife egress) or perhaps she needed to burrow a nest to drop some eggs. But its always possible that a raccoon got her (or injured her) especially since I found one “fishing” a bit and exploring under the deck this past week. My vet thinks that maybe the funky weather kicked her into hibernation mode and said not to worry until its been hot for a while (like July) but today we saw the TTBNL (Elena calls her Mr Tibbs) sunning for a bit but they don’t necessarily have to have the same hibernation instincts due to their age and size difference.

On other news the landscape plan is in work and we got our AC unit in place although we’ll have to move it when we get the swim spa in this fall. Oh and Daryl’s finally making a visit to the area so the gang will be busy for a weekend.