My kids were set on entering our County Fair’s turtle race this year.

It was a fun adventure. The idea is perfect. You find a wild box turtle, care for it for a few weeks. Then it races and you set it free.

The kids get to learn about turtles from caring for them, but the turtles get to remain wild and go back to their homes when it’s all over. Easy peasy. I had spotted a handful of box turtles in May, so I figured we’d have no trouble finding any before the race over the weekend.

We went hiking all over and kept a lookout when heading to more remote areas for lake swimming. The first turtle we found had been hit by a car. Since I used to work as a veterinary assistant for a zoologist, I went into patient care mode and warned the kids that because her shell was cracked in so many places, she probably wouldn’t make it.

It was rough. Cleaning the turtle up was work, but once she was stable, she rested under a heat lamp in the teens’ room. The poor dear died the next day.

That was a bit heartbreaking, but I told the kids, “We don’t help injured animals just to try and save them. We help them to bring them comfort and care no matter the outcome, so they don’t suffer if they do die.”

A couple of weeks passed, and then we found another healthy turtle on our way home from swimming. This lively box turtle had a deformed right front leg, but boy, could he run.

We brought him home and the kids and I started working on building a temporary outdoor habitat for him out of old scrap wood we had in the woodpile.

Turtles are known to dig, so first we had to dig a trench and put logs in it. We attached the posts to the logs and then nailed in the boards and built a 7′ by 11′ run for him.

We had some wood from an old dresser to repurpose, and even used the old crib that was falling apart. It had plenty of smaller pieces that could be used. Then we made up for what we were missing.

My son let his older sister claim ownership since she was still sad about the death of the first turtle, so she dug out a pond for him, and we lined the hole with a baby pool before filling it with mud, water, and fish.

We named this turtle Turble and continued searching for a second one for my 7-year-old son. We hiked everywhere. We searched in the woods, on country roads, through fields and ponds. We went at sun up and sun down and every time in between. We even hiked through rainstorms, since turtles love them. Turble watched us come and go and enjoyed getting all the blackberry treats to himself.

On race day, we still had one turtle. But it worked out, they let us race Turble for the two of my kids who wanted to participate, and each time he just sat there and sneered at us as if to say, “Race for you? No thanks. I’m enjoying the view.”

We all did look pretty silly cheering on our turtles. But we didn’t even mind losing. We had fun anyway. Turble has been such a fun temporary addition to our family that we’re looking into adopting a permanent backyard tortoise.

I figure we should knock down our first habitat enclosure and work on building something a bit prettier if it’s going to remain, but that gives the kids another project to help improve their building skills.

Turble is going back to his wild home this week. We’ll miss him. And we worry about his leg, but he’s done just fine with that nub thus far. I think he’ll be happy to go off on more adventures.