Watering Place in Summer

Our reeves turtle, Kumosuke upset health owing to dehydration in 2013. After then, I become more careful about water supply for our turtles especially. I will talk about our small schemes for watering place of our turtles in summer. At first, The life style of our turtles is as follows. Our two turtles, Kumosuke & Kurumi sleep in this box his box at night. I made it to keep them warm in winter. But I use it all the year round because it's useful to put hem sleep calmly. Kumosuke & Kurumi almost live in the balcony for about 8 hours a day, from coming out of a box in the morning until returning there again in the evening. This is their suitable playground here, middle of a balcony where a lot of flowerpots are collected I try to make two watering places in this thicket where they spend long time. I put the plastic tray which filled water here under the thicket of ivy. Kumosuke is most pleased with the raised area next to this container under the leaves of ivy and he passes most of daytime and relaxes here showing his face from the shade of leaves. When I approached him to try to take pictures as Kumosuke just stayed at his usual spot, his very black face appeared from the thicket. He said "Do you want me? I must surely want to give me meal. He was a pleasure. " And he followed that with rolling and falling into water. Another is such a secret hiding place that we call it "the watering place of a cave". A tray filled water is placed also here, under the shelter made from the used small plastic chair for the bathroom. Our turtles liked hiding here from before. So once they are there, they will not come out easily. Other than that, another tray filled water is placed under the pot for water lilies at the end of balcony. This is also their favorite place. from before because that is a corner. They like also a bowl for water water hyacinth(left) and a bucket for water weed(right) They often fall into there and harm inside.. These plastic container for watering place are shallow, about 5-10cm in height so that they may go in and out easily. And I work hard at carrying water from bathroom once in a while to let them play in a little bigger watering place than usual. I sometimes put water in it a little deeply not to remind them of how to swim. The depth of the water is about 20cm for 5 buckets of water. They are swimming to be aquatic turtles and benefit from exercise though it is not deep enough. I use this container bellow when I want to make it wider though it isn't so deep. This is a container of sandbox for children. I got it at Home Improvement store more than 15 years ago. It used to be usual watering place of summer time at the garden when Kamemi and Kumosuke was young. When water plants are floated, turtles look happy and feel calmer. And it feel cool and suitable for summer.