She laid during "La Patum"

It had to be that day. I wanted to go on Sunday night with some friends to "La Patum de Berga", the village festival,  and the terrapin started digging the hole at 19:00.

The day before, on Saturday, more or less at the same time, she tried to make a nest. I saw her digging, hidden among the vegetation. In a couple of hours she stopped. Where she was trying to dig a hole there was a stone and the earth in the area was very hard. 

Trying to dig a hole

She was just starting, I didn't try to make more pictures

She left it like that 

As I was saying, she tried again on Sunday. Like she did on Saturday, she chose to do it under the grass.

I saw she was digging for the regular movements of the grass

At 21:00  I realized she would be there for a long time, so, I went to the festival.  To the " Patum de Berga", proclaimed "Masterpiece of Oral and Immaterial Patrimony of Humanity" by the UNESCO in 2005. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCPHOT41Boc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D8Rc5ruGmg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaOnPQ5HEPM

http://www.jordicohen.com/category/patum/

When I came back home, around 3 o'clock in the morning, the terrapin was still in the same place, working in the nest. I went to sleep. Next morning, at 9:00, I saw her underwater and, in the place she had been most of the night, to my surprise, the eggs uncovered.

The upper one has part of the shell collapsed

She laid four eggs. The hole was not very deep, I think this is why the last one collapsed. The earth was very hard and it looks as she had problems to dig the hole. Some species sometimes lay the eggs in places with vegetal debris and do not bury them. I don't know if Clemmys sometimes does it. But last year she made a proper hole and covered the eggs, in a place with sand mixed with the earth.
I talked about it with a friend with a lot of experience breeding turtles. What he does is dig the earth and water it some days before the females starts trying to nest. That way it is easier for them. If she wants to make a second clutch, I will do it. Also next winter, I will soften that earth with some sand and garden earth.

Regarding the incubation I wanted to try  Lucky Reptile incubators. Some time before I programmed one at 25ºC and another one at  30ºC. I already realized that there was more than 2ºC of difference between the real temperature and the one you read. But the worst is that they failed when I needed them. When the terrapin started digging I connected the incubators, but the temperature didn't pass the 25ºC. At the 12 hours anything had changed. I tried to put them both at 34ºC and the temperature didn't rise up. One of them was new.

I put two eggs in my old Jaeger. I checked the temperature with signatrol data loggers. I programmed it at 29,5ºC.  The humidity higher than last year.

I put the other two eggs, even the collapsed one (which I don't think that survives) as described in some prehistoric books. A bowl with water heated by a aquarium heater. All closed with some inclination to avoid condensation water drops falling on the eggs. The eggs in vermiculite, in an open box. The temperature about 26ºC.

There is a signatrol data logger in both incubators, measuring the temperature and the humidity every hour. Now I have to wait.