Family,  Florida,  Outdoors

Dinner Island: Part 1

I found Dinner Island WMA while on Google Earth one day. I am always looking for new places to explore, parks to see and find the little out of the way places no one goes to. Well, this is one of those places, especially when it isn’t hunting season. A long road winds its way through the property, and you can get out and hike through any of the hammocks any time. Cattle ranching is also done on the land so cows are very prominent as are deer and hogs. The last two you’ll see more in during the non-hunting times. Oh, turkey, too. If you’re lucky maybe a bobcat or panther and probably bear live there, too.

We went a few weekends ago with our friends Kathy and Randy for a long day of photography and relaxing in the very cool weather that had come through.

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Chris sneaking back over the fence after trying to chase down an otter. The canal the otter was in was full of water hyacinth and provided perfect cover for the otter.

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We found a few horses that were friendly and asked for a nice head rub….

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and one apparently developed a fondness for Kathy!

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One thing I love about Florida is being able to walk in the wilderness and run into citrus trees of all sorts. Usually they are sour oranges, ones you want to cook with and not eat straight, or grapefruit. When the Spanish came to explore Florida they brought citrus with them and thus after many years of colonization, settlers planted citrus near their homes and even Florida’s Natives utilized the fruit in their hammocks and tree islands. It’s a real treat to find some citrus after a hike, but on this day, it was even more awesome to find lemons!

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Really, really, good tangerines!

Grapefruit Belly
Kathy developed a grapefruit belly!

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This trio of bandits eluded us for a bit. They had scampered across the road, catching Chris’ eye and we thought they were maybe otters. After walking for a bit down the road, poking our noses in little openings in the bushes we got flushed them out and they trotted down the road.

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Well, you’d hope people wouldn’t litter!

Rascals
We found three baby raccoons running down the side of the road and Chris got the better photos since he was on that side, but I snapped what I could. They were so cute!

Stay tuned for Parts II and III! Macro and sunset shots…!

Ashleigh update: After having a collapsed lung on Saturday, it has since reinflated and everything seems to be going as well as possible with her blood work and x-rays, etc. Her kidneys are functioning and now I think they are working on the other end of things—check out how tiny her diapers are! That’s a tiny little behind! One day at a time…

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