This past week we found a turtle in our backyard wondering about. We had to find a temporary home before she escaped! We used a small plastic pool, old pots, and some lunch containers to make a temporary home. We also did a bit of worm hunting in the yard!
We scouted out the yard for a nice place for her permanent home where we could easily visit her and create a nice addition to our backyard. Once we found the perfect place, we gathered all our gardening products to make sure the dirt would be appropriate for a tutle. Yes, there are guidelines.
Luckily my family likes to build things. Rascal and I watched to make sure it was straight and sturdy and ran errands to get things! It is 6’ x 39” wooden box. The walls are 12” high and it has a trim on the top that hangs over the inside to keep the turtle from being able to climb out. We worked into the night digging 12” into the ground to put carpet at the bottom. We used carpet that is made to redeck boats so the turtle can dig down, but CANNOT escape. We used a combonation of clay, dirt, peat moss, and coconut shell to make a new soil mixture that would be easy to dig in and turtle friendly. We planted strawberries, herbs, and flowers to create a natural habitat. Now, let me show you the pool we built.
The pool is my favorite part. They found rocks in the yard and used a rubber storage container. A lot of math went into this project to get the angles just right. It needed to be installed so that the turtle would enter into a shallow end and the water would gradually get deeper. The rubber container was cut at an angle and the rocks were glued in so they wouldn’t move around when it needs to be cleaned.
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