Buster’s New Digs

At 10:08 a.m. and with little in the way of fanfare (or reaction from Buster), our beloved Russian tortoise was tranfered from the 3-square-foot indoor aquarium she’s long resided in to her new 25-square-foot playground where she promptly sat still and probably won’t move for the next hour. Maybe two, which is what tortoises often do.

But just look at her basking in all that awesome real sunshine instead of under the flourescent Vita-Lite she’s known since 2001 (click to triplify):

UPDATED (8:15 P.M.): From the What Was I Thinking files, I really have no idea why I thought simply flimsy screening material supported by wooden slats would be feasible as a floor. The weight of the dirt/beding alone made everything sag (and a couple slats pop loose), but it took putting the oh-so-burrowing tortoise in there to realize it just wasn’t a workable solution. So off to Home Depot I went to get some far more proper plywood cut to two  5-foot by 2.5-foot pieces and then back home I came (after a stop at the driving range to find out I hadn’t totally forgotten how to hit a golf ball not entirely badly) to remove Buster back to her old home inside, then find the energy under the rapidly setting sun to shovel all the dirt/bedding out into a wheelbarrow, tip the hutch up on its side and screw the new base in place. MUCH sturdier, but Buster’ll spend the night indoors and we’ll try again for a 24-hour visit outside tomorrow.