The Clatter - Hat and Tortoises

 If you have a group of cattle, you've got a herd.  If you are visited by a bunch of black crows, you have experienced a murder of crows; likewise, a group of whales is a pod.  So what do you have when you have a group of tortoises?  We aptly refer to our group of tortoises collectively as the clatter.

This bright morning in May, I come into the sunlit dining room and look out across my spread, casting a proud and watchful eye on my clatter as I properly drizzle the Cholula hot sauce on my two eggs over easy. There is a saying in these parts, "All hat, no cattle".  It is not a good thing to be labeled as such. One does not want to be found to look the part, only to be revealed to be a pretender.  A shallow facade. A fake.

Here at the Suneson spread, we are the real deal.  Sure as shootin' we harbor no hollow boast under our hat.  I have the Hat AND I have the Clatter.

A proud Tortman - Runnin' four head of tortoise on his spread.
No Idle boast, Hat and Torts guarnan-damn-teed. 

I finish my eggs and Texas toast, wash up the dishes and step out the back door to check on the clatter.  Though you say they are only ponderous reptiles, I say, as a decades long tortman, that these fellows have their own inquisitive personalities and are surprisingly spry.  And just like cows gather around the rancher's truck when he drives into the pasture, my clatter comes a moseyin' toward me when I step into their yard.  I do not like to disappoint my boys, so I usually have saved up melon rinds, lettuce or bok choy for them to graze upon when we meet and greet one another.  It makes a tortman proud to have his clatter gather 'round him.

(L to R) Morph, Li'l Tex and Chomper munch their greens.

This particularly fine May morn, I fetched half a head of romaine out of the crisper and sauntered out to feed the clatter some treats.  They were all out and each expressed joy in seeing me come their direction.  I parceled out lettuce leaves to Isaac, Chomper, Morpheus and Li'l Tex. 

Chomper tucks in to his Romaine vittles 

Mr. Morpheus

I bid them all a fond farewell and remind them that I'll be back before sundown to check on them and make sure these guys (especially Chomper) have not set to rasslin one another and have gotten somebody flipped over onto his back.  It happens sometimes on the range.





















A group of tortoises is known as a clatter.   
[So designated by Susan Suneson]