title: Self-Portrait With Turtles: A Memoir
author:  David M. Carroll 
description: Carroll, a naturalist and an artist, discovered turtles when he was eight years old, and in this slight but charming memoir, he tells how these wetland creatures forever changed and directed his life. After his first encounter with a spotted turtle in a woodland pool near his home in a central Pennsylvania housing project, he was obsessed, wading in swamps, marshes, streams and ditches to find turtles no matter where he lived. This infatuation led to a fascination with everything in nature, and he combined this interest with his talent for drawing and painting, attending the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and embarking on a brief career as an art teacher. Although he was popular with the students, especially the more unconventional ones, he was too exuberant and imaginative to last in that profession, so he and his wife, also an artist, moved to rural New Hampshire, where he could devote himself to nature studies. Carroll has now been observing turtles for 50 years, and although he laments that their habitats are often lost to development, he continues to find them everywhere. In an especially touching final chapter, he tells of following one particular spotted turtle for 18 years and finally succeeding in observing her annual nesting ritual. Unlike his earlier book, The Year of the Turtle, this is not a natural history of turtles but rather a meditation on the author's life as a naturalist and a paean to the intriguing creatures that lured him to that calling. Illus. by the author. <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  # Ranch Manny
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## BA Tortuga
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Turtlehat Creatives](../images/00004.jpeg)
  
  
  ![Turtlehat Creatives](../images/00003.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Ranch Manny
  
  
  Copyright © 2021 BA Tortuga
  
  
  Cover Art Illustration by Alexandria Corza. Used with permission.
  
  
  Editing by Desi Chapman, [Blue Ink Editing, LLC](https://blueinkediting.com/)
  
  
  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is
  purely coincidental.
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any
  manner whatsoever without written permission except in case of brief
  quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information
  electronic address Turtlehat Creatives help@turtlehatcreatives.com
  
  
  Printed in the United States of America.
  
  
  ISBN: 978-1-953438-17-1
  
  
  1st Edition Turtlehat Creatives 2021
  
  
  [![Vellum flower icon](../images/svgimg0004.svg) Created with
  Vellum](http://tryvellum.com/created)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  