Our new pet

Several weeks ago, we were walking home from the grocery store and Luke found a turtle in the middle of the road near our house. We could tell that at one point it had been someone’s pet because it’s shell had been painted. Luke got really excited and picked the turtle up, justifying that it was going to get run over if we didn’t take it home. Luke named him Umberto which is a Honduran name that we think is sort of funny so it seemed to suit the turtle. Umberto is about 8 inches in diameter and still scared of us a bit. He didn’t eat anything that we gave him for 2 weeks…we tried everything from cucumber and carrot peels to cabbage, rice & beans, etc. but Umberto wouldn’t eat any of it! On morning I was eating a mínimo (small banana) and decided I’d find Umberto and see if he liked bananas. I put him next to the bits of banana and he stuck his head out and ate right in front of me! Before he wouldn’t ever stick his head out if we were in sight but that morning he was so hungry he didn’t even care. So now all we feed him is about ½ a mínimo a day. I’m sure there has to be other things he’ll eat but we haven’t figured out what those are yet. Umberto gets up pretty early in the day and wonders the yard. I usually find him by the compost pile in the morning. He’s a pretty easy pet to have but doesn´t make a very good watch dog.

Umberto hanging out in the yard