#135 Complete: Connected with Nature… Killed a Cockroach… Saw Manatees…

 Today’s Resolution: Connect with Nature

Maybe it’s counterintuitive to try and connect with nature whilst killing bugs, but sweet mother of Raid, there are a lot of bugs down here in Florida. Spiders the size of my palm, these obnoxious invisible “no see’em” bugs that only come out at night and will bite the crap out of you if you’re not walking or in a breezy place, and giant cockroaches (although my Grandfather would have you call them “palmetto bugs” which… are still cockroaches). Living on the water has its perks, but bugs are a very certain and clear drawback.

So despite turning into a bug-killing ninja lately (and we definitely killed a hornet and a “palmetto bug” tonight), we did spend most of the day outside (and with the door open too, hence the hornet).

To kick off the day we went flea-marketing which is starting to become my favorite hobby. You can spend all day getting exercising, searching for treasures, making new friends, learning new stuff and getting fresh air. As a bonus, you can do it all for free (unless you find something neat!)

I realize that’s not too nature-y though, so we also visited a few farmstands after realizing that we needed a longer day to go orange picking like we wanted to.

We ended the with the most obvious answer to this resolution: a float on the boat! Not sure if I mentioned this but uh, we’re living in a nature park! Seriously, check out Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park and you’ll get an idea.

So a hop on the boat and up the river we were watching fish jump out of the water. A little further down and we could see the manatees poke their big noses up to breathe and blow. To top it off, we had a dolphin swimming right next to us! It’s pretty insane down here. Apparently all the manatees come to this area in the winter to keep warm, so you can’t float down the river without seeing one.

Also, you can swim with the manatees in a few areas, but I was a little too afraid to connect that closely with nature today.