museum time-out, turtles & fossils, surprise package!

oh! it's wednesday again! hump day!

to be optimistic...the weekend's not far off!!

last weekend i attended "Collector's Day" 

at the Florida Museum of Natural History here in town!

Collector's Day. it happens once a year. you sign up in advance...

they give you a table to use...you bring your 'collection'...

and display it for all to see!

there were all kinds of collections...from the Simpsons...to swords...old microscopes...

frogs...snoopy...spatulas...old lures...beanie babies...light houses...manatees...cats...

gemstones...old wind up toys...old army stuff...you name it!!  

all kinds of weird...unusual...cool...collections!

ok...so let me start at the beginning...

have i ever mentioned that i also have a turtle collection?

yeah, besides bones, feathers, rocks, artifacts, beads, driftwood, old bottles...

i also collect turtles!  (not live ones)

if you're around my age...maybe you remember

the little green turtle we would get as a pet.

this poor little turtle was plucked out of a tank and sentenced to

  live  in a round plastic container with a little ramp leading up to a little plastic palm tree.

poor turtles!

my next turtle was a box turtle. named charlie.

then...after that...when i lived in california, i had a kiddie pool out on the porch.

this kiddie pool was home to a few koi and a diamondback terrapin.

over the years, i've rescued a few turtles...

scooping them up and moving them across the road...out of harms way...

moving them faster than their little legs would carry them!

i've picked up injured turtles and taken them home 

to nurse them back to health.

so, for as long as i can remember, i've collected little turtle figurines...

i've always been drawn to turtles. they're my totem.

a friend of mine who also collects turtles signed us up to attend 'collector's day'.

our collection.

it was pretty cool...

it was the first time i'd ever gathered up all my turtles...

and 'showed them off'. 

turns out there were over two thousand visitors that day to see the collections!

i brought MOST of my turtles.

some were just a little too shy and didn't want to be plucked

out of the garden...or off the shelf.

we had a lot of compliments, comments...and questions...

and learned there are a lot of other turtle lovers out there!

at 3pm  we packed up our turtles...

sam came by and helped load them in the car...

then we wandered around the museum!  i was looking forward to this!

all the prehistoric fossils & bones. ancient times. nature stuff. i love it!!

(read more at The Hall of Florida Fossils)

 

On every stem, on every leaf ... and at the root of everything that grew, 

was a professional specialist in the shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, 

or other expert, whose business it was to devour that particular part.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes

(go here...to read more...about the butterfly exhibit...)

and...so...that was last saturday's adventure...

i have ONE more thing to mention before i go...

this past monday...home between appointments...

i stop at the mailbox on the corner.

there's a key in there for the package bin. i thought to myself...

hmmmm, i don't remember ordering anything...

so i open it and there's a 'priority box' in there.

i look at the return address, and it's from a fellow blogger...

someone i've become friendly with.

anyway...i pick up the box...shake it...and hear the tell-tale rattling sound

of bone against bone! HUH??!

i put it in the car...took it home...opened it...

A BOX OF BONES!

yikes!  what a surprise!

a DEER!!  the skull. ribs...all the bones!!

and a note saying she found these up on the mountain while walking her dogs...

and she thought of me!!  hahahaaaa!!

SO...what about the fact that i was in someone's thoughts 

when they encountered a dead animal...a carcass...a skeleton...

ha! i guess you could be remembered for worse things!

i was glad the box didn't open up during its journey from virginia to florida!

THANKS  for making my day JP!!  visit her blog at  Home In The Hollow!!

and thanks for thinking of me, JP when you saw that pile of bones! i think! :))

no, really... i love 'em!!

have a good rest of the week...

Little by little one travels far.   ~J. R. R. Tolkien

stay cool - travel safe

laura  :]

((ps - remember the post i did about 'spelling'...

well, while watching the news the other night...all about the unusual freezing weather 

here in the US...they spelled MINNESOTA wrong!! they gave it only one N!

that's pretty bad....))