The rainy season has come in Northeast Texas, and with it creeps and crawls a slew of visiting wildlife. 

This week yielded a lovely black box turtle, a precious garter snake (not pictured), and a jewel of a green tree frog.  And it’s only Wednesday!

We met this little fellow on the way to the pig pen.  We watched him for a bit and then set him back in the direction he was already going.

No red ears and yes webbed feet, so that makes this little guy (girl?) an eastern box turtle, or an American pond turtle. 

Turtles, by the way, scurry much more quickly than their tortoise cousins!

By my best identification, and with the help of friend Google, we’ve discovered that these leaves the pig likes so much are called dock.

They are all over the place here, so I wanted to determine if they were human edible.  After all, the pig loves them and he has similar digestion to a human.

Evidently dock leaves ARE edible, like mustard greens, and this will yield a fun source of vitamin C as well as a homeschool lesson in botany.

I discovered this bright little fellow on the dock I was picking near the smokehouse.  I left it undisturbed and it sat wisely as I picked a few leaves from its perch and moved on.

I wonder, what other treasures will we find as we explore our new farm?