"Wait.... What?!?!?" says Poor Otis!

Poor Otis is confused like the rest of us how it was almost Spring-like a few days ago and we wandered around the backyard, but now there are 3 inches of snow.

Sigh.

Spring is coming. Just not quickly enough.

Blocking Otis

Otis, my 4 year old cherry head tortoise, is very anxious for Spring. He is very anxious to go outside and frolic (or whatever tortoises do outside in a yard full of grass). He gets bored being stuck in the house and, sometimes, he decides to mount my leopard tortoise, Georgie. Georgie is *not* into to be mounted or mated or looked at or nibbled on or touched or talked to or moved or pet. She is a very solitary tortoise that we let out so she can bask under the mercury vapor bulb in our kitchen for a change of pace. She too is very excited to go back outside for the summer. This summer will be the first time that she is big enough to free roam the yard and not be stuck in the "Babies Box." She's very excited. Until then, she has to avoid Otis and his occasional desire to mate.

While I worked on my computer, I kept an eye on Otis & Georgie who were basking together by my feet. It went really well for awhile, but then Otis felt amorous. Oy vay! So I blocked him with my foot.

At first, he attempted to eat my foot because it looked tasty somehow. No, Otis! No biting!

When I moved my foot so it wasn't in his mouth, he tried to sneak under my leg. 

That was it for Otis and he was relocated to the living room where he could wander around at will.

We are definitely all dreaming of Spring here.

Dreaming of Spring

The high today in Utah was over 60 degrees!!! It was fantastic! My zoo & I are so anxious for Spring and sunshine and warmer temps.

I opened the back door for awhile to let the warm air in. Otis stared longingly into the backyard.

Then Teddy joined him in admiring the snow free backyard.

Teddy decided to go out while Otis wasn't quite ready to try it out. 

Because it was warm enough, I took Smaug with me to go run a couple of "pet friendly" errands. I took a picture of him on my shoulder when I stopped at a stoplight. He stayed very mellow and looked all around him. 

At the vet, he attracted quite a bit of attention. 

Then I ran in to get some frozen feeder rats at my local pet store (my local feeder rat supplier had a virus wipe out their entire colony and I'm anxiously waiting for them to start selling feeders again!). He got a few odd looks. 

I can't wait for Spring! Warm temps! Walks to school! Tortoises pooping outside instead of on the kitchen floor! Woo hoo!