Easter morning was just another Sunday. I went to let the tortoises out into their yard, and then went to feed the ball pythons. With no small kids at home anymore, and the grand kids not coming over it was a quite peaceful day. I miss the days of Easter egg hunts and family dinners. But tooling around with the animals gave me peace.

Later in the afternoon I went to sit outside on the swing and have a glass of tea. I enjoy sitting and watching the tortoises wander around grazing on the grasses and weeds. But not today, Mertall was digging. Not something my tortoises do often. With precision and intent she dug a hole with her back feet pulling out dirt like a little steam shovel. When she was done she laid her eggs and proceeded to fill her hole in. Last year when she filled in her hole she made scrambled eggs out of several of her eggs so this year I pulled her away before she had filled it in all the way.

I didn’t think there was so many at first when I started to pull them out. She had dug a hole quite a bit deeper than I thought. All total there was 42 and 3 cracked ones.