All You Need is Love, and a Dry Place to Sleep

Farewell to February, that month of hearts and love. Toulouse the tortoise did not love you, February; you were much too wet.

Last month brought rain, forcing Toulouse to stay indoors. A sun-worshiping desert fellow like that does not like to be shut in. The red lamp doesn’t fool him for a second. That is not the sun.

Toulouse has weathered wintertime in several different houses already. When he huffed and puffed and knocked down his homemade wooden house, we bought him a sturdy Rubbermaid shed. When he folded the Rubbermaid shed like a house of cards, we got a horse trough and turned it upside down. We cut a nice big doorway. We made a lamp out of an upside down flowerpot to keep him warm at night.

When the rains came and seeped under Toulouse’s new horse trough house, leaving him marinating in mud, we added a cement floor. He protested; we stuffed him inside anyway and boarded the entry until he decided it was a nice floor, after all.

When the rain on the roof of his new house pooled and threatened to short out his toasty heat lamp, we added a canopy to shelter the entire house.

And still, once in a while on a stormy night, Toulouse the desert loving tortoise will not have the sense to come in out of the rain. We’ll find him planted like a tree stump in the corner, all sopping wet and befuddled. Then we’ll climb into his yard and push and pull and heave and ho, ankle deep in mud. It’s like trying to drag a 70 lb. boulder that fights back. Eventually, we’ll manage to wrestle him back into his nice, dry house.

Oh, the things we do for love.