Tutles, Awake!

On Wednesday I propped open the turtle-arium lids and did some spring cleaning.  The mulch in the opening of the underground "bunkers" was removed and the overgrowth cut back.  Terrance was awake and making progress on digging his way out of the rear of his bunker.  Tiberius was nowhere to be seen.  Terrance weighed in at 403 gm, very nearly last fall's weight. 

Then on Friday, Tiberius was spotted sunning himself.  He weighed 420 gm, again similar to his last 2023 weight from October.  Rehydrated food was set out and by day's end, both turtles had tucked in to some of it.  I have meal worms for them now, but the weather turned cold and rainy, so I'll feed them live food when the sun comes out.  

In other news, today was the bonsai club's saikei workshop.  A very decent crowd turned out.  My effort with 5 boxwoods turned out very pleasing.  I started with the large green oval tray that was badly overgrown and tore that down.  

Before

Then I cemented the recycled coral stones into place last Wednesday.  Also ahead of time, I separated the two 1-gallon potted boxwoods into individual trunks and reduced their root balls somewhat.

Today at the workshop, I added a base layer of soil, trimmed up the boxwoods, placed them, topped off with more soil and moss.  Bingo!  Instant saikei.