Welcome home

We went out of town for the end of the week to take my son to the coast to celebrate his birthday and when we got home we had a full six pack of eggs waiting for us! I have a pet sitter who comes each day so she puts the eggs in the refrigerator for me so they didn't sit out in the 101 degree heat!

The trip was so awesome that even though it has nothing to do with my backyard gardens or chicks or anything I thought I would post a few pictures. We drove down to the Texas Coast for the weekend and went to the Padre Island National Seashore to watch them release baby sea turtles. The Kemps Ridley sea turtle is one of the most endangered of all sea turtles and one of its only nesting areas is along the Texas gulf coast. There are patrols that watch for nesting turtles and then the eggs are collected and taken to a hatchery where they are monitored and kept at a temperature that will result in a 60% female hatch rate (so cool the temperature determines the sex of the hatchlings). Once the babies hatch - they take them to the beach very early in the morning and release them under the protection of nets and volunteers to make sure the babies all safely make it to the water. Of course once in the water there is no way to protect them, but ensuring the full hatch makes it to the water increases the number who have a chance to grow to maturity over the odds they would have if they hatched on their own with no help. It was really amazing to see and I highly recommend it to anyone who visits the Corpus Christi/Port Aransas area in the summer. The information on it can all be found on the web site for the Padre Island National Seashore - http://www.nps.gov/pais/naturescience/releases.htm