My accomplishments over the weekend were very few, but I did finally get the poor Sorghastrum grass out of its pots. I also discovered that the small pot I’d first thought was sea oats and later thought must be Indian grass is, in fact…sideoats. I have absolutely no idea how I managed to put sideoats in the pot; I thought I’d put all of the sideoats seed in Sara-Flah’s Giant No-Mow Flowerbed (where they did absolutely nothing), but apparently, I did not because sideoats bears its seeds…on the side of the seedhead! Speaking of distinctive seedheads, the stuff I planted from seeds that were sold as sea oats is something other than sea oats…looks like plain old wheat or something. I stuck it in the ground over by the pond, but don’t care whether it lives or dies. Not so for my poor remaining actual northern sea oats plant; that has one seedhead on it, and I want it to LIVE (and reproduce). Anyway, I put the two pots of Indian grass in the ground out front. I threw some water-absorbing polymer crystals in with the soil; apparently, this grass does well in dry areas, but our “dry” is beyond ridiculous.

I normally don’t pick up the local fauna, but I was on my way to feed the freeloading birbs when I noticed a blob at the edge of the pond. I thought maybe it was a clump of plant roots that the trash pandas had fucked up (may the little bastards all drop dead), so I went over to look. The pattern on the carapace immediately gave it away as an Eastern box turtle, and I thought the poor thing had drowned, trying to get to water, so I picked it up, intending to give it a decent burial. “It”, however, was a he, and very much alive. Not terribly happy about being picked up, either (which is why I usually do not).

I took a couple of pictures of him, then let him go, and turned on the soaker hose around the pond to give him some damp soil. Poor turtles…I need to come up with a trash panda-proof way for them to get to water when it’s as dry as it’s been this summer (and early autumn…could we have some goddamned rain, please?) They fucking ruined my experimental box turtle pond (may the little bastards all drop dead), so I’ll have to think of something else for the turtles (may they all live and reproduce).