2010-01-21

 

It's been a bad year for our tortoises.

After living with us for as long as we've been married - that's since 1996, for those of you who are counting - Natasha the tortoise died in July last year. This was a nasty, nasty shock. I expected her to outlive all of us. ALL of us. She was supposed to make it to 75 years old easy... and yet, suddenly, she was gone.

Here's the thing about Natasha: she was kind of loud to live with. The tortoise loved to dig. Unfortunately, her tank wasn't very deep, yet she persisted. This led to the droning, 1 Hz thump of Natasha attempting to dig through the bottom of her tank to deeper, cooler ground. She had laser-like focus on digging.

Thump.... Thump.... Thump....

And so on.

Visitors never failed to comment on it. We didn't really notice it after awhile, but on a warm day it was just constant thumping coming from Natasha's tank. Cory and Jen suggested that Natasha was actually my role model - following her lead, I was just as tenacious even in seemingly pointless situations. Thump... Thump... "We can be better than this, we just have to look at it from a different angle..." Thump...

I suppose they had a point.

One morning in July and without warning, The Boy went downstairs to feed the tortoises and Natasha was gone. Just gone. No warning, no symptoms we had noticed. It was sudden and terrible and heartbreaking. I didn't see her after it happened. The Boy cleaned everything up (my request) and by the time I came downstairs, both Natasha and her home for the past 13 years were cleared away.

Fast forward to December 2009. After living with us for 12 years, Nausicaa laid an egg -- and we knew she didn't have any boyfriend-tortoises. A visit to the vet said, "They just do that sometimes." After x-rays it turned out there were TWO more eggs in there, waiting to come out. Getting them out was important, because if they broke up inside and putrefied, that would be the end of our remaining tortoise-companion. He gave her hormone shots and sent her home, and the second egg came out a few days later.

We waited for the third.

When it still hadn't come out three weeks later, Nausicaa was back at the vet for another check-up. The egg was still in there, so another round of hormone shots was called for. This was serious. If that egg didn't come out, it was going to kill her.

In the end, that's what happened. Despite her excellent veterinary care and many baths, the egg broke up and poisoned her. It wasn't the total shock that we had with Natasha, but still terribly disappointing. For the first time in our marriage, there are no pet tortoises to nom up our leftover apple cores and lettuce hearts.

No idea when I'll be ready to bring home another tortoise. I'm just not ready to think about it yet.

Labels: beasts

posted by bethanye 10:55:00 PM