inside your shell

when i was young i had lots of turtles. my father used to stop and take them home whenever he saw one crossing the road so they wouldn't get hit by a car. under the porch in our backyard he had an ecosystem. they were safe under there from the cars on the highway. he built a pool and put food in there for them. i am not sure if they were happy or not but when the weather would start cooling down the turtles disappeared. i thought they ran away and later learned that they had dug a hole and hibernated. in the spring they would reemerge. i used to search around in their little environment and never could find where those holes had been dug. sneaky little turtles!