Not only do we have long skinny reptiles but big round ones too. Gopher tortoises were once very common here and their burrows are an important part of the ecosystem giving shelter to lots of other critters, including the long skinny kind of reptiles. We have a few of them here on the farm though one rarely sees them as they go about their unassuming business. They make a big sand pile at the mouth of their burrows and bury their round leathery eggs in the sand to incubate. Coons and coyotes sometimes leave evidence of egg feasts. This feller wandered through the yard on Friday and I put him in the screen house so Ellen could see him. That’s her hand for scale; he’s a big old thing and was pretty philosophical about an afternoon in the screenhouse.gopher.jpg

Local opinion is that they are good to eat and watching him I was starting to think he probably is. General Winfield Scott hero/imperialist warmonger of the Mexican War retired from the Army at the beginning of the War between the States, spending his first leisure at Delmonico’s in NYC where he could get his fill of terrapin; “the best food vouchsafed by Providence to man” as he liked to say. A different critter but not much different. We don’t eat endangered species here, needless to say, even when they’re ‘vouchsafed by Providence.’