Tortoise Tales

I was just looking through my Feedly and noticed that Evan asked how the tortoises were doing awhile back. I was finally able to figure out what kind of tortoise they are: Hermann, native to this area. They're really supposed to live outside, so we set up a new box for them on Halloween morning and they've been outside (or in the unheated veranda as humidity is bad for them as they are subject to respiratory infections) since:

They are supposed to hibernate. However, these tortoises were raised inside and this is the first they've been left outside to their own devices. Hopefully, they will hibernate on their own (that's the general opinion of other turtle owners we've asked for advice). They haven't started yet, but temperatures are still pretty warm for that. There's a lot more terrain relief in this new box (apparently, it's not good for them to be on an entirely flat surface) and the turtles really like to climb. This morning, I found Marie perched up on top of the plastic liner in one of the corners. I have no idea how she managed to get up there. However, when they were still in the inside tank, we did sometimes observe them helping each other out by one climbing on the other's back to get up to the ledge.