The flood waters reminded me about my youth and the turtles.....

I read an article the other day about the turtles, dying after the flood waters begin receding, and it reminded me of our horrible spring flood in 1958, here in the Delta.

Most, but not all, of the soil here in the Delta, is heavy clay soil called gumbo or buckshot, and after it gets saturated from a flood or even a big rain, it begins to dry out, and goes thru a certain stage, where it becomes almost like a muddy sticky glob of glue.....after walking only a few yards across a muddy field, it sticks to your boots, and the glob grows bigger and bigger, and becomes a huge ball of mud on your boots.

As the flood waters recede, turtles begin coming out of their hiding places, and attempt to follow the receding water.....in doing so, they crawl across the muddy fields, and the gumbo begins sticking to and building up on the under-bellies of their shell, until their legs can no longer reach the ground.....no longer able to move, they simply die in place.

It's quite a sobbering sight to see hundreds of dead turtles in a muddy field, who were just trying to survive the flood, stranded atop a big wad of muddy gumbo.