Nobody knows anybody, not really. The impressions we have of the people in our lives, at essentially all levels of intimacy, are like the poster presentations we did in Middle School, like short-ride Elevator Pitches… “Jamie’s like Steve Irwin meets Charles Bukowski meets Gomez Addams meets Anne Sullivan, but fat…

Louis Pasteur never said that, but if he’d been a herpetologist instead of a chemist and microbiologist, he might have. Taking care of a number of tortoises over the years has taught me that they’re incredibly tough creatures, but even the toughest among us gets sick or injured once in…

I recently published the second book in my children’s book series featuring the tortoises that I live with; this one about Darwin, a tortoise with some confusion about who they are when the human (me) changes his mind about what sex Darwin is, from male to female. Darwin and their…

I’ve been keeping tortoises of various types for years and one of the universal parts of their care regimen is regular soaks in warm water. Soaking tortoises in warm water helps them hydrate, helps them poop, helps get crusted gunk off of their shells and legs and feet, and gives…

It occurred to me the other day that my wife and I have been married for almost 25 years. I feel as though keeping a relationship intact, growing, friendly, and functional for all of that time is noteworthy, and worthy of some reflection. We were friends before we fell in…

I like multi-tools. They’re like a toolbox that fit in your hand. A person could argue that Swiss Army Knives were the first multi-tool, although I’d disagree with that person (mostly because of the pliers, something I’ll get to in a few paragraphs). …

I’ve rescued seven tortoises. Five of them make up the creep of Russian Tortoises still living with me; the other two were Hingeback Tortoises that had been living with people who realized that they were out of their depths with a tricky species. The story was similar in all seven…

The short answer to the question posed by the title of this piece is “nearly everything”; keep reading for a longer, and slightly more precise, answer. Redfoot Tortoises are omnivorous, meaning that they can, and do, eat a bit of everything. That sounds like great news initially, but the truth…

I live with five Russian Tortoises, one male and four females, all of them rescues in one way or another. They’re fascinating tortoises, active, intelligent, quirky, personable, and lovely. Their diets are both simple and challenging. They are essentially herbivorous, eating almost entirely leafy plant matter. Because of how their…