Every summer, at least one mama tortoise finds her way to our yard to lay her eggs. Every time I’ve seen this, it’s been raining. Maybe it makes the clay easier to dig. This year, I spotted her during the digging phase. She picked a tough place to do it, all among some old landscaping pebbles buried down against flooding.

After grabbing a few photographs, I left her alone to do what she was there to do. She’ll be gone by morning. So far, I’ve never seen the little ones hatch – maybe they do that in the rain, too.