O.K., I admit. I love the Lord’s good creation! Here’s the crane again, this time at about 150 yards away…
At about 350 yards, on another day, further down river…
I removed this fellow from the road, wary lest he reach back and take a chunk out of my hand…
Probably he couldn’t anyway, since he’s “just” a box turtle, though about three times bigger than the other ones I’ve seen thus far.
If you count the rings on the scales on the shell, is that like counting the rings of a cross-section of tree?
* * *
Animals do pretty well in their environment, outside, in freezing temperatures. As I share their environment tonight, out of my element (third night in a row!), I am reminded of my fellow priests and bishops in China who are on the run, out in the wilderness, if not in prisons and reeducation/labor camps, which would be worse. And just because they remain loyal to our Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome.
Accompany me, Father George David Byers, S.S.L., S.T.D., as I begin life as a Catholic Priest-Hermit by choice. Holy Souls Hermitage is dedicated to the sanctification of my fellow priests, bishops, deacons & seminarians going through the purgatory of this life or the next. Prayer and sacrifice go up, of course, for both Benedict XVI and the next Successor of Saint Peter. 
