Wings and wildflower festival!

    We discovered that our county is having a 3 day festival for birding and wild flowers this weekend. I must say it was quite awesome. It was the third annual festival. There were events all over Lake county but we stayed in Venetian Gardens. There was a ton of stuff to do just right there, especially if you have kids.

This was a book of events that was happening almost every park in the county had something interesting going on.

We missed the first day of the festival and ended up just going Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we stopped by with our dog, who we had taken with us to the Saturday market in down town, and realized this was great for kids so... we went home called the oldest daughter and everyone decided to go.

The first place we stopped at was the natural gardening where they were selling all sorts of plant most of them were native to Florida and none invasive and friendly for bees and butterflies.

natural farm area.

not sure what this plant is but it had an amazing bloom very large and exotic looking flower.

Fiddle head fern. 

Then we went back and got the oldest daughter and the grandkids and made it back in time to see the gator land show that was being put on. 

Gatorland man with a giant cane toad!

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Granddaughter got to pet the alligator she said it was soft. 

After the show we walked around and let the kids see everything. Even grandson was having fun and he is cutting teeth.

They were handing out free pens and flower seeds.

 Then we ran into a butter fly experience tent. It was a lot of fun for grand daughter she got to have a butter fly sit on her she said it tickled. There were all kinds of butterflies in the tent it was really a neet experience.

There were all sorts of crafts for kids and we did some of them. There was a whole inside exhibit area with everything you can think of that would do with outside things. We even found a lady that was selling water barrows with the city of Mt. Dora. She had a whole water conservation exhibit and we got free water bottles and came back the next day for the rain barrow. There were live bees in a see through hive. There were people from park services and even artist. Tons of stuff. And just about every both had something for free. And if you know me you know I love the free stuff.   

Before we left we let the kids run out on the dock and check out the lake. 

So Sunday we came back for the rain barrow and found out that we could take a free guided tour out to monkey island. So we did cause it was free. 

Husband with the rain barrow. It is 55 gallons and has a spicket.

The canoeing was hosted by Lake County Water Authority.

This was the launch point for the canoe and kayaks.

Here we are waiting to be launched into the water.

This was the island we paddled to.

 Our guide told us that there are aerators in the canals that run through Venetian Gardens and that the Gardens were built in like 1920.

This was our guide and she was great. The bubbles in front of her are from the aerator.

We floated through the canals and channels of the gardens before heading out into Little Lake Harris.

 We floated past the marina.

This was a photographer that we met she was very friendly. 

 We floated under a fallen tree.

Tree we floated under.

We floated down a canal behind the baseball stadium and found out that there used to be a big professional baseball team in Leesburg and Babe Ruth himself played here.

Only had one person run into a tree and it wasn't us.

After making it out to the island we floated back to shore.

We passed giant lily pads on the way back in.

Back under the bridge to the gardens.

Youngest daughter was excited about something.

I was amazed by the big lily pads.

lily pads.

And then after we moseyed our way home.

We passed some amazing cypress knolls.

And we found these awesome snail shells in the lake. Our guide said the red ones were an invasive species. The shells were huge.

I think we will definitely be going back the the Wings and Wildflowers Festival next year. I think everyone had fun and there was tons of interesting things to do. Plus it was free!

Bird watching part two

Well after finding the little bird eggs we decided to head out. Also Reese's had made his own find. While distracting us with the bird eggs. He had found some alligator poop to roll around in. We didn't discover it until we got down the trail aways. Thank goodness for bottled water and hand sanitizer. We cleaned him up as best we could until we could get home. And enjoyed the rest of the ride.

Not many birds but plenty of beauty to be found.

I'm thinking about planting some of these near my pond.

Blue pickerel rush

We saw all kinds of different water plant flowers.

This one is called Arrowhead. The flowers look small but they are really big about the size of a small baseball. 

Water lilies



Wild man! We saw this guy just sitting there.. enjoying the wild I guess?

We usually don't see too many people when we're out there but here this old guy was sitting right next to the water. We debated whether or not he was waiting for an alligator to come eat him. Emeralda Marsh is one of the most alligator populated places in Florida despite the fact that Lake Griffin, which this marsh is filtering, had a huge alligator die off in 1999. April through May is  alligator mating season here in Florida and it's not to smart to get in between those kind of lovers. We generally stay out of the water until June.

I think this was a black heron

This is a cattle egret.

Cattle egrets love to hang around cattle but this little guy was out here in the marsh.



You can't hide from us! Great white heron.

Grey heron.

White heron in flight.

Looks like we are going to have to get the John boat and come back soon.

 

Memorial Weekend

We were planing on heading out to the beach but with the threat of a storm (tropical storm Beryl) We decided it would be better to stay around the house. There will be rip currents at the beach that could suck us out and no one really wanted to go fishing today. We are hoping we get some of that rain here cause it's so dry but I think it will stay north of us.

So... We are planning a great bar-b-q. We purchased a little charcoal one at the store and this is the perfect time to test it out. We will also be thinking of all the men and women who have served in the military because that's what this holiday is about after all. It marks the beginning of summer and boy I can't wait! I love everything summer! I hope we have lot's of opportunities to enjoy the beach and springs this year.

The one thing we can't really do in summer is drive around Emeralda Marsh Conservation area Emeralda Marsh  Emeralda Marsh Conservation Area. So we decided it was a great day for a drive. And one of the last days the drive area is open. The sun was shining and it was a good time for a pic nic. We packed up our cooler and our puppy and we were gone.

 We were surprised to see how grown up all the vegetation was. Usually there is more open water. And you can see lot's of alligators. But the water level was low and no gators even though it is mating season for them.

Youngest daughter wanted to get a closer look at this strange plant that we had never see.

This is an example of the pollution that this area is filtering out of lake Griffin. The pollution was caused by this land being farmed and all of the fertilizer ran off into the lake causing a growth of allege and choking all the oxygen out of the water so the fish die.

Reese's was serious about finding some birds or at least some thing interesting.

We did spot a few birds not as many as at the beginning of the season. I guess when the snow birds go back up north so do the birds.

We made it to the observation tower and got out to have our pic nic.

There's the observation area.

Looking for birds.

Reese's waited patiently while we ate our lunch.

Reese's found these bird egg shells for us to look at.

And while we were looking at the shells he was rolling in alligator poop. We didn't realize until later when we found a spot on his neck.

 We enjoyed our lunch and then loaded back into the car for the rest of the ride. After the observation area, is always where I spot the most birds. I'm not sure if that is because that's where all the birds are or because after sitting amongst the wild life in serene silence I end up with a new state of peace that allows me to more easily spot the birds.

Come back for the next blog to see what all we did see.