Snapping Turtle

This day was indeed fruitful for Mr. C., tending to his garden, pruning and weeding, and enjoying a surreptitious cigar. He was the first to find the large, dark turtle by my sister's gate. My sister said, "He's friendly; he doesn't even stick his head in his shell." Then, I rushed off to the internet, my researcher hormones on high alert. I found that snapping turtles cannot stick their heads in their shells and they are the only turtles without this ability. By the time I returned with my other camera, he had slipped away and the people who'd been watching him had kindly given him his opportunity.