Tickled Tortoises!

Scott lives in Parker, TX with his family in a home that they designed and built to be comfortable, beautiful, and highly energy-efficient. They generate the bulk of their own electricity and harvest most of their water from the sky, though he admits that insulating properly is the most cost-effective strategy they’ve used.

Yup, Scott is an all-around good guy! He cares for the planet and living well in harmony with nature. He supports businesses that serve the energy-efficiency market. And of course, he cares for his animal friends: cats, horses, and Galapagos Tortoises.

That’s right! Scott’s designed a fine home for his three adopted tortoises, making their entrance in the picture below. He called us at the end of January because he wanted to find a solution for the big windows in his tortoise house. They let in plenty of nice light in the daytime, but night in the desert can get cold. He didn’t want to waste heat or have his special buddies get cold throughout the night.

He decided upon continuous cord loop EcoSmart Shades (he didn’t want the standard cord dangling in reach of the tortoises) in Forte, double cell light filtering. Forte is definitely a tortoisey color.

He notes that the doorway in the photo is 3′ 6″ wide, to give a sense of scale. The larger two, who are brothers, weigh about 200 pounds each, and are thought to be about half their eventual weight. “They are truly gentle giants.” Scott tells us.

Scott also gave us some food for thought about tortoises and sustainability:

“I think Galapagos tortoises are a great symbol for this kind of thing. The work that conservation biologists have put into bringing this species back from past exploitation, and the strength and gentleness these creatures show us, represent human and natural life in balance.”