Robo(t) Pietersen the First
We found him with his head stuck through the chain link fence,
His front legs flailing uselessly, his back legs straight and tense.
By the time we found him, he’d pushed so mightily,
His back legs could no longer be relaxed to set him free.
But my Ma persisted and pushed the fence away,
Until she had some clearance to get him out OK.
Having thus been “rescued” we took the easy route;
We took him on as family and gave him names to boot.
The patronymic “Pietersen” we understandably,
Bestowed on this testudo; it was ours too, you see.
Now, as to a Christian name, we were a little stuck.
But after we had studied him, we had a bit of luck.
We saw he was deliberate but moved quite jerkily,
Just as my Ma imagined a robot ought to be.
So “Robot” he was christened with “Robo” enunciation,
For as my ma instructed “That’s the French pronunciation”.
But Robo did not want to be our robot friend at all.
He disappeared without a trace, so far as I recall.
Riding the Wild Carapace
Some time after Robo left, I don’t recall how long,
There was another tortoise that was pretty big and strong.
So big that I could ride it as it lurched and lumbered
Around the tiny backyard with which it was encumbered.
But now my mem’ry fails me; I simply can’t recall
What was its name, if any, nor how we met, at all.
It puzzled me why that should be since I recalled so clearly
The most of Robo’s history and how I missed him dearly.
But now I think the answer, (on which I did reflect),
Is that this riding tortoise was someone else’s pet,
And I was just a passing lad who had no need to know
Much more than that I rode it, and thought it fun. And so
My life became a blur then because you see, I had
Been put up for adoption, ‘cause Ma divorced my dad.
She had to get a job for preserving life and limb.
She was too proud (or foolish), to want support from HIM.
And thus one day, when I woke up I had a second mama.
Which seemed OK, because she was my aunt, and so no drama.
Robo Pietersen II Of Mahalapye
Now we go fast forward, something like eighty seasons,
To where I worked the railway; just never mind the reasons
I worked there as a steward on a vintage dining car,
Joh’burg, Durban, Bulawayo, the journey repertoire.
Two overnights to Durban with overnight return,
One Bulawayo there-and-back; an almost three day burn.
Now, Durban held few myst’ries; I had lived there as a boy
But the road to Bulawayo offered new scenes to enjoy.
On the way was Mahalapye, which is said “ma-ha-la-pee”.
There we stopped for coal and water while the locals came to see
If they could get us hooked on what they had to sell.
The fruit was fresh and luscious but the carvings looked like hell.
But then one time, when we stopped there, there came a little urchin
And in his hand he held up high an exquisite creation.
Carved in hardwood, tan in hue, and cleverly abstracted,
He held a charming tortoise, and I simply had to have it.
For half a crown I bought him, cheap at the price I reckoned
And promptly named him Robo - Robo Pietersen the Second.
Unlike the first R-Pietersen the Second’s with us still.
He watches o’er the fam’ly from a bookshelf or a sill.
Impish Is As Impish Does
Again we go fast forward in time and socially;
I have a great career now and a thriving family.
A loving wife and children; two daughters and a boy;
A long-legged red setter; and a garden to enjoy.
The lawn is all kikuyu and all gardeners that know it
Appreciate the reason why you better bloody mow it!
For once when I neglected it there grew a patch so rampant
You’d lose a dog or cat in there; say, something like a dachshund.
Augusta, the red setter, used there to ply her craft,
Of stalking phantom critters; we thought the dog was daft.
On one of her adventures romping up there in the patch,
She tossed a rock, (we thought) aloft, which then she tried to catch.
Considering that catching rocks by mouth is ill-advised,
We rushed up there to stop her but were mightily surprised
To find what she was tossing was actually a tortoise.
And since she’d also chewed it, we declared habeas corpus
And took the setter’s victim in protective custody,
To spare it further trauma and to treat the casualty.
All-in-all, as it transpired, there was but minor damage.
The parts that had been gnashered did not even need a bandage.
By general acclamation, it was agreed that we
Would take the new arrival into our family.
Undaunted we pressed on with naming it as well
But what to name a creature that hides inside its shell?
While floating many options for names to fit the case,
Our charge began to fidget and slowly showed its face,
“I think that he looks impish”, said Jen, whose eye is keen.
And so it was that Impish, became part of the scene.
Now, notice how we just assumed that Impish must be male.
I’ll leave you to reflect on that ‘till later in the tale.
But we did not appreciate quite what we had begun,
For ‘keeping” a small tortoise is more glibly said than done.
As autumn pushed out summer and cool air came to dwell,
Impish became lethargic and seemed to be unwell.
But minds were set at rest upon a brief investigation;
The chill and shortness of the days had triggered hibernation.
So Impish in a cardboard box was put to bed to dream,
Behind a curtain in our lounge, awaiting spring’s warm gleam.
In spring there came a scratching from in the cardboard bedroom;
A sign that Impish needed now to have some outdoor legroom.
A relatively spacious camp; a low, but sturdy fence;
We thought that ought to be enough. How could we be so dense?
No sooner had we turned our backs than when we looked again,
Impish had done a gaol-break from that not-so-sturdy pen.
We scrutinized each nook and hunted every cranny,
But there was no more Impish to be found than my aunt Fanny!
So back things went to “normal” and off I went on business
Only to find on my return a great kikuyu wild’ness
To mow this verdant jungle so the mower would not stutter,
As high as it would go, was how I had to set the cutter.
A stroke of luck, as it turned out, for shortly after starting,
I felt the mower hit a bump and then ride over something.
"Something" that turned out to be Impish, the sly absconder.
What if that cutter had cut low? Nightmarish to ponder!
Back went Impish in the pen, its barriers now higher
And ruggedized and buttressed, to secure the occupier.
At the time, as we stood back assessing our commitment
To the health, the welfare and the longer term contentment
Of our little Impish charge, we thought we’d better study
Ev’rything there was to know about our re-found buddy.
We read more books than we could find in any single lib'ry,
But soon we found that what we learned was false and all oldwif'ry.
We learned from books that tortoises are mostly vegetarian;
A simple case soon proved to us they also are fruitarian.
We saw Impish chowing down upon a cactus fruit.
She ate the thing with relish, with skin and spines to boot.
We learned from books that tortoises do not need water with their feed;
Allegedly the moisture in their veggies would provide the need.
But Impish never got to read that memo, this I’m sure of;
A dish of water, cool and pure, was thirstily imbibed of.
No, Not another One!
We often on a Sunday would pile into the car
And drive into the country for a bit of R and R.
On one such an excursion we found beside the trail
A troupe of ragamuffins, with tortoises for sale.
We felt sorry for the ‘muffins and the tortoises to boot.
So a ’muffin’s fortune paid for, one more reptile wearing scutes.
Thus Impish got a little friend albeit somewhat slow
But ev’rywhere that Impish went that friend was sure to go.
What’s in A Name?
We named the new one “Erpish” for which I am to blame;
What then seemed so damn clever, in retrospect’s just lame.
Before I can explain it, you may well have recalled,
That Impish had been rescued from almost being mauled.
If traumatized and nervous, a tortoise’s reaction
To simply being handled, is instant bladder action.
If you have been peed on by a tortoise you will know
That skunk juice is a perfume in comparison, and so,
My reflexive reaction to the stink of it was “pish!”
And that is how I came to think of Impish as Him-pish.
That flummery inspired my suggestion to anoint
The new addition ‘Er-pish, which completely missed the point.
If Impish has an impish look then Erpish looks like what?
Whatever I was thinking, I was thinking like a clot.
For Erpish was an athlete of endurance and elan,
But what that means I’ll leave you to discover later on.
How Old Is My Tortoise?
Impish was the larger of the two by quite a bit.
A diff’rence in their ages we thought might account for it.
We learned from books that tortoises are aged by counting up
The rings that form upon their scutes, which as they age, add up.
One for each year, just like a tree, so said the cognoscenti,
Narrow rings when food is scarce, and wider when there’s plenty.
So, off we toddled, counting rings but quickly came to find
That counting scute rings is a way to end up in a bind.
As often as we did it we would get a diff’rent count,
And no two scutes apparently had aged the same amount.
What was wrong? We first assumed we did not have the skill;
Also, the books were simply mute on how to do the drill.
There was no way, back in the day, to look it up on google
But here and now with web know-how you still can be bamboozled.
A simple search on “tortoise scutes” will yield a ton of pages
Asserting that a scute ring count is how one gets their ages.
But there is one that bucks the trend, with online publication
That proves the method’s imprecise; And here is the citation
Going Walkabout
Now, do not think we never let them out of the stockade.
Indeed, we regularly took them, out on lawn-parade.
One sunny day, just after rain had washed away the dryness,
We’d let them out for walkies and discovered something priceless.
The tortoises were marching according to their plan,
With Impish in the vanguard and Erpish the guard’s van.
And as so often happens in Joh’burg after rain
Has dampened down the dust and all is fresh again,
Then as if out of nowhere Shongololos will appear
And snails will start new journeys from here to over there.
When the same thing happened as a-walkies we did go,
We thought nothing of it and expected they also
Would go about their business without too much ado.
Well, little did we know just what, we were about to view.
At first they walked a random route, as was their convention,
‘Till something up ahead of them grabbed Impish’s attention.
We thought we knew that tortoises can’t run but only amble.
Well, let me tell you this for free, that Impish kid could scramble!
With neck outstretched, head carried high and moving at a sprint,
Eyes focused like a laser with a hunter’s steely glint,
Impish became a predator as ruthless as can be,
While putting on a turn of speed that was a sight to see.
Then swooping down upon the prey, beak gaping for the crunch,
With one fell chomp and two quick gulps, the shongololo’s lunch.
I take it back, that wasn’t lunch, call it a snack instead.
Our predator was on a roll and lunch was still ahead.
Having snacked on thousand legs the main course had but one.
This time the chase was more sedate, ‘cause snails just cannot run!
I won’t describe the kill for you; but that disgusting mess
From dining on escargot cru impressed nevertheless
Because it was our privilege to witness once again,
That tortoises know best of all, what they will eat, and when.
So, summing up, we now had learned by direct observation,
That tortoises are omnivores despite their reputation
For being simple herbivores. And yes, they will eat lettuce,
Provided there is nothing else to whet their appetitus.
Gender Studies
Remember how we had assumed that Impish was a male?
Well, now it’s time to deal with that in rather more detail.
One Sunday afternoon as we were having a short snooze,
We woke to hissing noises from the tortoise calaboose.
“Oh crap” said I, “a snake’s out there!” and raced out to give aid.
Instead I found two tortoises conspiring to get laid.
There was Erpish mounting Impish; most athletically too.
But the sound he made reminded mostly of a blocked kazoo.
Here’s a video with that sound. When you see the close up view
Of the male doing his thing, so Erpish looked and sounded too.
Thus was put to bed the question that was hitherto unposed;
“Which is Impish, male or female?” well, they showed us! Question closed.
Preggers!
While supervising walkabout another sunny day,
It seemed to me that Impish had got stuck along the way.
She did not go exploring as she normally would do,
While nibbling here and sniffing there; no, this was something new
And Erpish had not followed her as was anticipated.
So back he went into the pen while I investigated.
By the time that I got back to see what she was doing,
She had begun to dig a hole; something was clearly brewing.
The first surprise was that the soil where she was excavating
Was muddy-wet while all around the yard was dry and baking.
But when I looked more closely I was able then to see,
Her home-made soil conditioner; her ever-fragrant pee.
She only dug with her hind legs, and did so dext’rously.
By scraping soil out with her nails and then lifting it free
By curling up her foot into a ball with which to hold
Some soil, while reaching backwards to dump it beside the hole.
The chamber’s sides were spherical with overhanging rims.
The bottom, though, was mostly flat; all dug with two hind limbs.
Not once did she turn back to check, so confident was she
Of building what would soon become a tortoise nursery.
When her stumpy legs no longer could reach down to dig more soil,
She went into a kind of trance and seem’d exhausted by the toil.
But no, that was no trance because her tail she now extended
As far as it would reach, down which an egg slowly descended.
And when it dropped onto the floor she rolled it under cover
Beneath the overhang before she slowly laid another,
Which now could safely land without the chance of smashing into
The one that had preceded it; and thus each egg was seen to,
Until the hole was neatly lined with white ceramic spheres,
That clinked like finest china as they jostled with their peers.
Then she backfilled the hole again by sweeping with back legs
And gently tamping with flat feet to cover up the eggs.
When the eggs were covered and the hole filled up again,
You might think redundant soil would give away the game.
But once again she showed her nous by using her own plastron
To utterly erase the spot, as if with a steam iron.
When she was done, there was no sign of damp or excavation.
From first to last, the whole thing was five hours in duration.
Tragedy
I wish that I could say that we were soon with hatchlings blessed.
Regrettably, ‘twas not to be. Instead we were depressed.
The place where she had laid her eggs was soon baked hard and dry,
And that’s the way it stayed because the rains did not come by.
When hope was fully lost I went and carefully exhumed
A clutch of perfect embryos, their fates so cruelly doomed.
And so I reinterred them there where they had not been born,
And cursed the stupid ignorance that brought me there to mourn.
I should have dug them up before the ground had dried that day
And incubated them myself; but hindsight works that way
Re-dis-location
When I was offered a new job that moved us overseas,
We had to find a home for them where they could be at ease.
On top of all the many things that she then had to do,
My lovely Jen took on the task and pulled off quite the coup,
Persuading the curator of the reptiles at the zoo,
That fostering our darlings was the noble thing to do.
So all-in-all, Jen did the best for them that could be hoped for,
Since they were now dependent and in need of being cared for.
For all we know, they still live in that tortoise habitation;
I looked at it on Google maps and saw lush vegetation.
Which, if they’re there, will suit them well so they may thrive and grow
And may even outlive us; they grow that old, you know.
Epilogue
It never really dawned on us that we had undertaken
What more or less amounted to tortoise domestication,
And while we learned a lot from them, ‘twas all at their expense;
Much as we loved to have them they should not be kept in pens.
A tortoise is a vagabond without a fixed abode.
It should be free to roam, and that’s the very least it’s owed.
It also should have habitat with luscious vegetation
And all kinds of invertebrates to suit its delectation.
But most of all, it should be loved for doughtiness and wisdom,
Resiliancy and constancy and for just being awesome.