New outdoor CDT burrow

[Levi the Leopard]

@JohnnyB65 You are absolutely right though. I moved and was able to give all the brick to a friend. Had it been cemented...well... Based on your car jack story, you get it. That was hilarious btw..

 

[Tort Love]

It was brought to my attention that Luke Skywalker's tort house wouldn't offer him a cool enough retreat during our warm/hot SoCal weather.

The thread to see his house is here:
http://tortoiseforum.org/threads/new-outdoor-cdt-house.90294/#post-841444

So, I spent the morning building him a burrow. Now he has cool place to hang out when it's hot out.

I decided to make his burrow into the side of a brick planter. It's 7' long and about 2' wide. Since I don't have cement skills (yet), the bricks are just stacked on top of each other.

To start, I removed the bricks on one side of the planter and dug a trench 3' in.

Next I screwed together a plywood frame. I left a few inches on each side so dirt could insulate it all the way around.

Made a top of plywood

Then covered the wood with painters plastic

3"-4" of dirt piled up on top then I covered the whole area with decorative bark

The opening to the burrow faces a covered area where the BBQ sits. Unless you stand in the corner by the BBQ, you can't tell it's there.

The clearance is about 9" and remember it's 3' long

And he fits in there just swell

Walking in to check it out...(well hobbling in. I took his wheel off so it doesn't clog with dirt)

I know this burrow is far from perfect. It's not even that pretty and I like my turtle stuff to be pretty :shy:
But using nothing but scraps and what I thought was an ugly brick planter to begin with....at least now he has an "underground" retreat to cool off in. He doesn't care what it looks like, as long as it works.

The temps outside are in the 90's today. At noon I used my temp gun to check the concrete- 115F and the entrance to his new burrow- 66F. Now that 4 hours have passed since it finished I should go temp it again. But I'm fairly confident that this will work for us, for him.

..I'll keep ya posted

After hard work on a hot day, what better way to relax than watching a Desert tort play in the sprinkler and drink from a puddle??

Love this very cool and so cute

 

[Jacqui]

Hi Heather, it looks good and I have to tell you that it is probably better to not cement them in place just in case you ever want to make changes. I built an above ground pond many years ago and cemented it all together, but after about 5 or 6 years later I decided that I wanted to move the pond. I had cemented it so well that I could not break it apart and had to use a car jack to lift it up and roll it out on pipes.

Now I only build things that can be taken apart. I used Patio Wall Blocks for my second pond without the concrete and have made numerous changes over the years.

I used regular colored concrete blocks for my tortoises borrow because it had holes down through it. Instead of cementing it, I packed wet mud down into the holes with a stick. I did eventually make changes to it by making it longer and I have to say it didn’t want to come apart with the dried hard mud holding it together. The concrete block doesn’t look as nice as the brick, but it is strong and also provides a planter above.

Oh I just now noticed that this was an old thread. I thought you just did this.

I love the look you ended up with this by using the choices you made.