Galapagos Tortoise Encounter!

Saturday evening as we were driving to Stake Conference, we passed a tortoise walking on the side of the road. "Cool! look, a tortoise!" we said, and continued driving for a few more seconds. Then we realized it was a LOOSE TORTOISE! so we turned around and picked it up, and took it home.

We spent the weekend learning what it needs to eat, and providing it with lettuce, apples, kale, and other leafy greens that were going bad in our refrigerator.

This morning, we learned how to tell the gender, the age, and the species of the tortoise. 

After learning it was not the "boy" tortoise that Eddie wanted, we named her Olive, since her shell is an olive color.

We also discovered that she's likely a Galapagos tortoise.

We also learned what the different parts of her shell are called.

All in all, she's a beautiful tortoise!

We will probably put up fliers nearby where we found her, in case she's a runaway and some poor child is missing her. So we'll see what happens! 

But no matter what, it's been terrific tortoise time!

UPDATE: Here's a video of Olive eating out of Eddie's hand...