The Snapping Turtle On the Pine Island Road

Sunday afternoon we were on a 30 minute drive to my hometown of Kinder, LA.  We bought a lemon tree for my mom and were going to plant it in her yard.  The tree has little lemons, and we hope it makes a ton of 'em.  We turned west in Hathaway and began driving down the Pine Island Highway.  The two-lane road is a lonely stretch, cutting between rice fields and crawfish ponds on the north and south sides of the road.

When we passed by the Thornwell Warehouse Association, there was a large object in the road.  I swerved to avoid it, looked in my rear-view window, and found a place to turn around.  I drove back to the obstruction in the road and got out of the car leaving the car in the road.  Here's what it was:

A big, fat snapping turtle

I carefully picked up the big snapping turtle by the tail.  I held it up to Tricia and the boys.  The big turtle opened his mouth, hissed and let out an awful smell.  You can get some size perspective on the turtle by looking in the photo above and beneath just below the turtle's left front foot.  It is a raccoon track.  This was a big, old turtle!  He was fat, too.  Just look at the fat bulging out from underneath his shell!

Teasing the Turtle

Of course, in the photo above, you can tell that I picked up a stick and teased the turtle into snapping at me.  (You know you would have done the same.)  It is a snapping turtle.  It's what they do.  The old-timers say that if it bites you, they don't let go until it thunders or lightnings.  Don't worry, I don't wish to test the veracity of that theory.

When I was rice-farming, I would catch many big snapping turtles like this when we were water leveling.  I would get out of the tractor, wade out and pick the turtle up and keep it in the cab of the tractor with me until quitting time.  Man, could that thing stink up a tractor!  Then we would bring the turtles to a relative named Blanc.  He was a good cook and he would butcher the turtles and make Snapping Turtle Sauce Piquant.  That is a 'turtle stew' with a red gravy served over white rice.  We would go over to Blanc's house for lunch and he would feed us.  Boy, was it good!

Offering a pardon to the snapping turtle

I thought long and hard about putting the turtle in the trunk of Tricia's car and bringing it home with us and making a turtle sauce piquant for old time's sake.  It would be good eating, for sure.  But it is a lot of work to clean a turtle, and I'm a little short on time right now with work.  Not to mention the fact that it would really stink up the car.  I was jarred out of my ruminations by a truck coming fast down the highway.  I was still parked in the middle of the road with a big turtle by the tail.  I held it up and asked the motorist if he'd like to take the turtle home.  He declined the offer.  I carried the big old turtle to the roadside ditch and deposited him there so that he wouldn't get hit by a car or truck.  I've been responsible for turning many of these guys into sauce piquant.  Maybe it's time to let one get away.