Serious.  It's a legitimate holiday.  (I started to type "legit" again and then felt like the muscles that make me inclined to use brospeak were taking over my brain.  No good.)

Strangely enough, I got a call at 7:45 AM by someone who had found an alligator snapping turtle in the road and wanted to know what to do with it.  I'm that person.  "Oh, you found a bird/kitten/puppy/snake/turtle/frog/squirrel/child?  Well, you can ____________."

So, while this post won't be entirely devoted to them, I wanted to talk a little bit about the terrapins in my life.  It's the lesser-known critters of the Burke clan (what's the German version of clan?  that's us).

Pinky & Pokey

I acquired my little reptiles from questionable sources.  The animal-lover in me hates that I perpetuated a market for breeding and selling these small critters.  Here's the breakdown:  it is illegal to purchase turtles with a shell length of less than four inches.  My guys were purchased when they were obviously still hatchlings.  The way the shop got around the illegality of it was by selling me the container and giving me the turtles.  Yeah, I did that.  :(

First-ever photo of the monsters.  I'm a master photographer.

These guys grew like beasts.

Perfect for macro photography.  This was my first attempt, with Pokey.

 They actually do have individual personalities.  Pinky is more shy, more reserved, and the smaller of the two.  Pokey is aggressive, a biter, and big.  So far, both appear to be female and I haven't had any issues with territorial spats or aggression.  I will eventually move them to a man-made pond, as soon as I devise a way to build it.  :)

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I got to ride last night!  We did some basic walk-trot with a few crossrails.  I didn't want to push him too hard since he'd just had his feeters done and hadn't really been worked since last week.  I don't know if I mentioned this, but I got rear shims for my Contender II pad and I really think they've had an impact.  I had a round, flowing beast beneath me who asked for the contact and gave through his back end.  Roar, ponykins.  Roar.

Also?  My butt is killing me!