Had a terrible experience today... Behind the house is about 100 acres of woods and I have maybe a half mile of dirt roads I've cleared with my tractor... One such road is only about 40 feet deep in the woods and goes down to a creek... The woods between the road and the tree line is dense so the cats spend a lot of time in there hunting for stuff... Mostly voles...

Well, this morning I had a load of crappy dirt I had dug out for a footer and was taking it back to dump in some low spots in the road down by the creek when...

...I saw something in the middle of the road heading toward the house...

It was a big, big snapping turtle... Probably 40 pounds worth... Now I've been able to get snapping turtles out of roads by holding out a long stick, let them bite it and drag them out of the road to safety...

There was no way I was going to get this turtle out of them woods and all I was thinkin' is that one of the two outdoor cats was gonna find it, paw at it and end up dead or crippled... So...

...I shot him!!! And I feel terrible... I have never, ever killed a turtle... I stop and get 'um off highways...

I feel terrible... Absolutely terrible... I mean, maybe I could have... Or... Or... I've been trying to think of anything else I could have done... Oh, sure, he might have wandered off... But then he might killed one of my cats...

I feel terrible... My karma is messed up and I'm sure that something bad will happen to me for what I have done...

I feel terrible...

B:~(