Box Turtle

I was walking around killing time while my son was in preschool last week, and I came upon a mother and her son trying to coax a turtle off of the sidewalk. They were gently nudging it with a stick and it just wasn't working. It was a small box turtle, so I calmly picked it up and showed it to the boy (about 3) and set the turtle back in the woods. They walked away, and I walked away, and it took every ounce of will that I had to not go back and pick the turtle up and put him in my bag and carry him home with me. I was lost in my thoughts about that turtle when, "what's there in the road I'm about to cross?" "Another turtle!" This one got to take a ride. 
I brought him back to the school, and showed him to a couple of the preschool classes, and then took him home. I didn't know that much about box turtles so I got out an old aquarium and put some dirt in it and got him settled in. The problem was that he really didn't calm down. He was going this way and that and generally freaking out. Off to the internet to learn about box turtles. It turns out he's a three toed box turtle, the official reptile of the state of Missouri. It's called a three toed box turtle because they usually only have three toes on their back feet. Pretty cool. This particular type of box turtle lives in the woods and fields of the southeastern U.S. and migrates depending on where it can find the moisture it needs. They're most comfortable if they have a place to burrow in leaf litter and really don't like to be exposed, which is why he was freaking out. I dumped a pile of leaves in with him and within a few moments he was buried and much happier. Through more reading I learned that he was an omnivore, eating worms and slugs and whatever creatures are slower than him, as well as fruits, mushrooms and a variety of plants. They also do best in captivity when kept outside in a pen. Off to the garage I went to get some old fencing and I put a pen up for him in a part of the yard that was shaded and had a lot of leaves on the ground. He wandered around for a bit, decided he couldn't escape, and then burrowed down in a nice little hidey hole. Since then I've been giving him apple slices, which he seems to love every day. He comes out and grabs them and drags them back to the hole to eat. My boys also found a bunch of worms while digging out back this weekend and threw them in to him. If they got close to him, his head would reach out and grab the worm and gobble it down. He's shy, but not shy about eating. 
He's been fun to have around for a few days and I learned a lot that I didn't know about box turtles. One of the things I learned is that wild box turtles do very poorly in captivity over the long term. In the wild they can live for 30 years or more, but seldom make it more than 12 months as pets. Tomorrow I'll load him back into my bag and take him back to the woods where I found him. He seems to be well fed and none the worse for the wear, receiving only an incredible tale to tell his turtle friends. You'd think that at some point I'd outgrow this sort of thing. It doesn't appear that's the case.