Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park

For mothers day we surprised mom by taking her over to Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park.

I was pretty excited about this day, mostly because if you haven't noticed I'm super duper in love with animals!!

Not only was it an awesome time to look at cute and vicious animals, I actually learned a few things I didn't know prior to this visit.
Such as hippos are extremely lazy and just kind of lay there in the sunshine. Or how it's awkward when an owl stares directly at you without blinking, or that even the Florida Cougar is rarely scene, and when it is, it's sleeping in a tree.




Also, did I mention we got to ride along the river on a boat? Yes, that was pretty cool, and there was even a 'tour guide' who would speak through the microphone and tell us about the things we're seeing,
such as "oh that's a Anhinga bird over there" or "look at those snapping turtles over there by that rock" and so on.


Also, It was Joshua's first boat ride! It was such a fun day!! :) We also went out to eat at a Japanese Resturant afterwards, the food was good <3 I'm glad mom had a nice Mother's Day... it made us all very happy.

Manatee in Crystal River

Apparently, something I didn't know, was that the West Indian Manatee has called the gulf coast it's home. It's a very common sight to be walking around town, along the water, and seeing groups of manatee basking in the afternoon sunlight.



(They travel in pods, which is a large group of manatee, that you can see on the right)

Manatee are Herbivores (like me!) In an aquarium, it's common to see the manatee being fed lettuce, but here in the wild they mostly just munch on sea grass, freshwater plants, and other algae.
The manatees can be found in the warm waters of shallow rivers, bays, estuaries, and coastal rivers.



Numerous times upon watching the manatee, I have seen them "playing" in the water. They'll do barrel rolls and sometimes I've even seen younger manatee swim after one another. They are generally very (extremely) huge animals, and they tend to move rather slow. These gentle and cute manatees can weight up to 1,000 lbs or more, and are an average of 10+ ft. long! The females, quite surprisingly enough, are actually bigger than the males. It's uncommon to see them out of the water, but occasionally the manatee will swim to the top, exposing their nose to the surface to inhale air, before going back down.

Fun Facts: Sea Lions

I got to meet some pretty awesome Sea Lions today,

And I have all this sea lion knowledge swirling around in my brain, 

and well, I guess I might as well share!

Sea Lions, not to be confused with their close cousins the walrus, or the seal, is an aquatic beasty-beauty.
These mammals can reach 8 to 10 feet in length, and can weigh a good 700 pounds! Granted depending on the sea lion you meet, their size can vary.
In some cases they've found sea lions that are even 1,000+ pounds.







Generally, the males are bigger than females and show quite a bit of dominance.


These lions of the sea are often described as having a
'torpedo-like body'
and just so happen to be powerful, graceful, and even acrobatic swimmers.

You can find these guys all over water-areas.
They've been known to live in California and even up into the Canadian coasts.
You can find them just about everywhere! Accept for the northern Atlantic ocean, (which, even researchers can't even figure out why the sea lions don't live there!) 

How do I tell the difference between Sea Lions, Seals, and Walruses? - Well, that's easy! Walruses have big tusks, it's easy to distinguish them from the others, who do in fact not have tusks :)

Here is a little list to help you tell the difference between Seals and Sea Lions (they just looks so similar, don't they?):

SEA LIONS:

• Earflaps
• Long hairless foreflippers
• Hindflippers rotate underneath to allow them to walk on land
• Swim underwater using foreflippers like wings of a bird
• Long smooth whiskers or vibrissae

SEALS:

• Earholes
• Short, hairy foreflippers & long claws
• Move on land by wiggling on belly & keep hindflippers straight out
• Swim by steering with foreflippers and powering with hindflipers
• Whiskers are crimped or beaded

Sea Lions luckily really only have two predators that are other animals - killer whales, and sharks. 

They are often and most likely found in extremely large colonies, consisting of numerous amounts of sea lions. For their protection, they will stay very close together both on land, and even in the water.
The big colonies though also have many sub groups, sometimes sea lions will move from one sub group to another. (yay, vacation time! at least they socialize) 

Sea Lions are considered to be very intelligent animals, which is a fact I definitely have to agree with upon seeing them preform at the MOTE Aquarium! 

Though, considering their size, Sea Lions can be very dangerous animals to be around, as they can become rather aggressive (especially the males).

Sea lions can even dive up to 600 feet for food in the water! They can even remain under the water for up to forty minutes before they need to come back up for air.

And if you thought you were a good swimmer, think again! These bad boys can swim up to 25 miles per hour! But they generally move about 10 miles per hour, unless they feel threatened. And although they appear lazy, they simply enjoy relaxing and basking in the sun, just like me! 

The average life span of this majestic lion is a good 20 years, but they might even see 30 years if they are raised in captivity! Pretty cool, huh? Surprisingly enough, these mammals aren't immune to all health problems.
They can often suffer from pneumonia, epilepsy, and various types of cancer... how sad. :( But research shows that the pups are immune to such problems as long as they are fed milk from their mothers. 

And remember to throw away your trash in the right place, because plastic is actually a huge threat to sea lions. Something that may seem safe to you, such as plastic rings from a six pack of soda, can be deadly for them. They will swallow the plastic, and then will have problems internally with the digestion process! Let's try and not let that happen to these awesome fellas', alright?
Also, forgot to mention - their diets consist of seafood - salmon and herring being their favorite!

How awesome, you are now super informed about these awesome animals, and have more knowledge than you did before reading this, cool!

Don't Forget To Be Awesome, my fellow animal lovers! Remember to be nice to the earth <3

MOTE Aquarium

I was like super-duper-duper excited about today, because, we'd be going to MOTE Aquarium!
And if you know me at all, you know that I have so much love for animals,
I mean, I don't care if it's land or aquatic, I love it.
I will literally TALK your ear OFF about animals, and animal facts and things I've learned
and what I know. I feel so bad for people that hang out around me, because like, we'll see a bird, and I'll spew out a bunch of information about birds.

Because I just love them. And we got to places like this - an aquarium - and you just lose me, I am gone.



Leah is no longer, what is present is a three year old with the knowledgeable mind of a learning freak. I will stand there and talk to the animals, "Oh, hello mister sea turtle, how are you today?"

I mean, it's ridiculous. If someone were to take me on a date here they would get no attention from me, nope noppers I'm gone I'm soooo distracted by everything else.





And, to top that off, they had a little show.
Three sea lions were in this big tank, and this lady comes out. And there is music playing
and it's just so much fun.
This lady is just so pumped up with energy, and she's teaching us about the sea lions

and telling us all about them, and then, they come out of their little swimming pool.

Sea lions, just chilling, but the best part is they do all these cool tricks and they dance to the music and seriously I was like in tears??

This was such an emotional moment for me, because it was just sooo awesome to see.
And I mean please forgive me for my jumbled text.
none of this probably makes any sort of sense
but I was just sooo happy. omfg.

I think one of my favorite parts was the manatees, because it was just so exciting to see them!! :)

 

That manatee became my buddie, I loved this fella'!

Also, they had an educational program where you could learn about dolphins and watch them train them, as well, which was pretty cool :)

Kathrine Abbey Hanna Park, FL

Today we went to Kathrine Abbey Hanna Park in Jacksonville, Florida. :)

I was suuuppper excited for today, just because it was so nice to get out of the camper and go for a little drive.








The park has several large lakes, along with beach access to the ocean, yay!

It is currently the 'off-season' here in Florida, therefore the kayaking and boat rentals weren't available today, but we had fun walking around the trails and eating a picnic lunch!

I've seen alligators in aquariums and at the zoo before, but I've never actually saw an alligator in the wild before!

Not until today, at least. I ended up wandering on my own for a bit, I tend to go at a slower pace than the rest of my family, considering I'm always stopping to take pictures of flowers, or something another that catches my eye.













So anyways, here I am walking down a path, and there are some people not far from me, one of them suddenly says, "do you see the alligator?" I walk faster over towards them, only to look over and see a gigantic alligator just hanging out on a log. I pretty much freaked -





my heart was racing, pounding out of my chest even. I felt so nervous and yet excited,
I was shaking all over. I ran back to find my family and I shown them the alligator as well, it was pretty awesome :)

Afterwards, we even saw an armadillo!!






Later on we drove over to the beach, and spent a few hours walking along the shoreline.

That's where we saw a group of dolphins! It was so amazing, I've never seen this many wild animals so up close before now!! :)

I didn't get a picture of the dolphins, by then it was getting clouded and dark and it started raining, so we had to leave.

I had such an awesome day, I really loved this park and I hope we come back here again sometime!

Summer Reading Program

Unfortunately the Summer Reading Program has come to and end :( I have proudly read 17 books and over 50+ hours this summer, what an accomplishment! We all had so much fun at the library this summer, they offer the greatest programs and are very child and teen friendly. It's a wonderful atmosphere and I've enjoyed myself greatly.

A fantastic program the library offered was learning about Belle the giant green-winged macaw! Did you know that Macaws are able to reach speeds of up to 35 miles per hour? They also have very strong beaks, and can break open a Brazil Nut shell.

We've also learned about Bats, Foxes, Rabbits, and Owls! Joshua and I love animals, I'm glad that we both really learned a lot from these events.

• Did you know what grey foxes can climb trees? I had no idea!

 


And just today there was a teen program, ART DAY. It was so much fun, art is something I am very passionate about, so a day of sitting around sculpting, painting, and coloring is defiantly fun for me!




 
During the summer you received "book bucks" and at the end of the reading program you could use your book bucks at the teen auction/raffle. I bought a tie dye kit and a new book, it was very fun!