Full Moon

A couple of nights ago there was a beautiful, brilliant full moon. So bright you could almost read by it, but couldn’t sleep with it in your eyes. Maybe the tortoises noticed it, too, as we observed some strange behavior the day after the full moon. Initially after the introduction, when the tortoises were in close proximity to each other, the males were mounting the females and other males all the time. But after the first couple of days, they all went their separate ways and we haven’t seen any of them interacting in any way since. That is, until the full moon day. That day Francisco and Ben saw two groups of tortoises displaying mating behavior. In one group, a male was going after two females at the same time! The females were having none of it. It’s strange to see this behavior all of a sudden. Maybe they are getting used to their surroundings now and are getting down to business…although it’s hard to say what that is given that they’re sterilized.

In other news, we have moved past the stage of fighting like dogs over who gets to lick the pots clean after dinner (this privilege goes to who cleans the dishes), now we are fighting over who gets to drink the water the pasta was cooked in and the canned corn and pea juice. Haven’t yet moved on to the bean juice, but maybe we’ll get there.