"I Can't Believe I'm going to the Country With Bumbling Idiots And A Stinky Dog."

So said City Girl as my husband threw Sammie into the van and closed the door.  She is at an age where exaggeration and understatement have no problem existing in the same sentence. 

"EEWWW! He's got shrimp breath!", she said as she begged us to open all of the windows.  We were eager to comply.   Sammie's breath could drop an elephant.  He’s had this problem before.

My husband and I were happy, because this was City Girl’s first trip to the Tree Farm.  I knew the idea of being trapped in the car with her parents for 12 hours was nothing short of torture.  But she had run out of other important things to do, and we bribed her by saying she could drive on the highway.  

It was late by the time I guilted my husband into giving up the Football Playoffs to take our only daughter to the country for the first time.  

We didn't leave until noon.

I commented that the traffic was light.  "That's because the only people on the road are women buying wings and beer for their men for the playoffs right now", my husband said.

City Girl did really good driving on the highway, alternating between "What do I do?" and "I'm not stupid. I know how to drive".  Well, mostly "I'm not stupid.  I know how to drive".

Thankfully, we made it to the Tree Farm in one piece. 

As soon as we got there, we appraised the view from the future Shelter looking toward the dry pond.

God I love Florida.

City Girl seemed to like it too, and started taking pictures with her iPhone right away - a good sign.

Until she caught me taking pictures of her.

Whereupon she ran back into the Van and stayed there for the next hour.

My husband grabbed a burger before he and I went for a walk.

Notice Shrimp Breath would do just about anything for a bite of that burger.

We found some blackberry plants just waiting for Spring.

I couldn’t find any flowers on this trip, but I have been admiring this plant.  In trying to identify it, I found some great websites for Florida plant identification:

Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants
Florida Wildflower Foundation
Florida Wildflowers and Butterflies

Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out what it is.  Perhaps someone reading this might help me out.

I also don’t know what this is, though it looks like some kind of Yucca or something.

On our walk we came upon what I think is a Gopher Tortise hole.

Just as I was thinking how cute it was that Sammie discovered the hole too, he nearly disappeared into it.  He has no tail, so I had to drop the camera and grab him by his hiney hairs to keep him from going in.

The woods were beautiful.

Sammie got a little carried away and decided that there were more interesting smells far in the forest now that there was no chance of burger.    We scared every animal away within a mile of us yelling for him to “Come” and “Get over here”.

We couldn’t pry City Girl from the Van because it was starting to get cold, and since it was getting late, we decided to leave.

On our way out of the property, my husband wanted to check out the dry pond.

Here’s what it looks like from the center of the dry pond looking towards the first picture in this blog post.

We had City Girl detour on the way home to a quiet 10 mile country dirt road we like.  About 4 miles into the drive, we came upon one of my favorite spots: an 800 acre cattle ranch.

We kept going and suddenly City Girl let out a squeal, stopped the Van and jumped out to take a picture of this 3 foot alligator.

Followed by this deer shaking its tail at us.

There would have been more animal sightings I’m sure, but I was in the passenger seat trying to look through a windshield full of City Girl’s toe prints.

Back on asphalt, we passed one of my favorite farms planted in what I think is Winter Rye.

The daylight ended just as we crossed the bridge near Inglis.

Sorry for the long blog.  I like to read blogs with lots of pictures and hope you enjoy them too.

Fortunately we all made it home in one piece, still talking to each other, and we didn’t lose the dog.

I asked City Girl if she like the Tree Farm and she said “It’s nice”.

Ah, just the words I wanted to hear.

Just don’t tell her I said so.