There she was in all her iguana glory, basking blissfully in the morning sun on a high limb of my lime tree.....could it be? Yes! It's my missing iguana, Clover, who I just spent the last thirty minutes searching for and making frantic enquiries about.
The whole thing that happened was so weird.
I did a stupid careless thing and left the cage door unclipped. In the morning (Saturday) Clover is gone. My stomach drops out. I pick it up and do a quick search for her, still holding my stomach. I swallow it back and drive over to the Devon House (a park/entertainment facility) next door. I tell all the guards about her and beg them not to kill or harm her but to call me if they see her at all. I then park (my son is sitting in the car with me) so that my car is facing my own garden wall and I can see my garden (the top half) because the other parking spaces are for some reason and just on this particular morning, taped off and out of bounds. As I turn off the engine my son says "Hey Mom....what is that on our lime tree? Could it be Clover up there?" I look and she is right there in front of us in all her amazing, beautiful, total iguananess. She is relaxed and enjoying the early morning sunshine and her sudden freedom.
We drive back really fast and get around to the patio, my son having sat on the wall in case she decides to make a run for it. I get a ladder and slowly, softly I climb up to her, talking lovingly of gratered pumpkin and fresh mustard greens....then a DEEP BREATH, GRAB AND HOLD!!! and amazingly, thankfully I have her, safe and sound, and with only minor scrapes and scratches on my arms, both from her claws and the lime tree, she is back home.
I SO wanted to take some pictures of her in the tree, against the blue morning sky in her temporary moment in time when she was "free", but my camera problems are not yet quite over (I am getting there) plus I did not want to delay getting her back in case she decided to flee.
She is none the worse for her adventure and I am glad I got her back, her chances of survival out there would have been very small indeed.
If I had not parked the car in that spot exactly opposite my garden wall, we may never have got her back.
