Turtles and Tomatoes

I'm back from vacation -- my family and I went to South Padre Island for 5 days -- we had a great time, but I won't count the mileage because it's just too painful. While we were gone a horrible storm hit Austin, taking out some crucial parts of my garden. The squash may not make a comeback... the pole beans.... well, let's just say it's not pretty. They got completely knocked over. About 1/2 did not get up-rooted. We'll see how it goes.

What did survive without any problems were the tomatoes. Thanks to the giant cages, they didn't get hurt when the beans fell over. They are covered with fruit and on my first day back from vacation I was able to harvest 2 little tomatoes, 1 patty pan squash (hopefully this is not the only one I get) and some lettuce.

My youngest was delighted with the tomatoes and carried the harvest around the house in a little bowl. When I wanted to make a salad for lunch today, I couldn't find them, so I had to look in her room. Sure enough, she had put them in her backpack. That explains why when we left this morning she had called out "Adios tomates!"

I only wish that she would actually eat them....

Turtles
One of the days that we were in South Padre, we saw a sea turtle on the beach laying eggs. It was amazing! She was surrounded by tourists and volunteers from Sea Turtle Inc. I did not really understand why so many people were crowded around (and the volunteers were calling other people, including us, over to watch) because there were signs all over the place telling people not to disturb the sea turtles.

The next day, I took the kids to Sea Turtle Inc. for a very interesting presentation and a chance to feed the turtles in their hospital (they like romaine lettuce, apparently). The volunteer explained that the turtle is in a "trance" while she is laying eggs. The volunteers were gathering the eggs as she laid them in order to bring them to a safe place.

They also explained to the kids about the problems with plastic bags and sea turtles. When a plastic bag gets into the water, it looks an awful lot like a jelly fish, which sea turtles like to eat (probably before the lettuce?). I had heard this before, but when the volunteer held up the bag, it really did look like a jelly fish, and it finally made sense to me. The kids remembered too.