The Last 03/08/23

Kissimmee Prairie Preserve, Okeechobee, Florida

Let’s briefly recap what’s been going on with our little Holy family with additional details that can be found in the Gospel of Luke:

Mary and Joseph met and lived in the nation of Israel in the region (state) of Galilee in a small, piddlysquat, nothing town called Nazareth. They traveled 90 miles to the region (state) of Judea to the town of Bethlehem for Caesar’s census and the birth of their first child. Eight days later, a local rabbi circumcised Him as was required by the Law presented to the fledgling nation through Moses by God over 1,500 years ago. Forty days after giving birth, when Mary’s time of purification was over, they traveled to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices and present Jesus to the Lord, dedicating Him to the Lord as their firstborn. This was required by the Law for both humans and animals. At some point, after the visit of the Magi and before Herod slaughtered the baby boys, the family took off at God’s direction to somewhere in Egypt in order to keep the Salvation of the World safe.

Are you getting fed up with pictures of alligators, turkeys and the same trail rides every day? It’s been an amazing time for us, but I imagine it gets pretty boring for you. However, in two days, we move again; this time to Jupiter where Blaine’s sister and her family live. We’ll be very close to them at Jonathan Dickenson State Park for two weeks and I highly doubt I’ll be posting anything during that time, but we’ll see!

Any hoo. Today was more of the same, although we did happen upon a few different things today.

This guy was just standing alongside the road this morning.
Never moved when we stopped to take his picture.

If you look closely, you’ll see 8-9 gators all sunbathing side-by-side. : )

We headed down the road towards where we saw the bull the other day and discovered there was a gator down there too! This is why you don’t venture off the roads around here! You never know where they may be!

We saw different cows today! Most of these have horns!

Terrible pictures, but we saw a flock of wood storks.
They don’t care to have their picture taken like the reptiles do.

Back at Alligator Alley, we were privileged to see one on the move!
Hard to believe this slow moving creature can run 35mph and swim 20!

This was a new discovery – a Florida softshell turtle!

Here’s what the whole thing looks like
Males average 6# and 14″ long

We went out to a small hill near our campsite to try to watch a rocket launch but they scrubbed the launch. ☹ It’s the world’s first 3D printed rocket. I’d love to know how they did that!

There were giant thistles growing where we waited to see the rocket!
Many fingers and palms were prickered in the taking of this picture. : )

That’s where we stood.
There’s a huge open area to see rockets go up 68 miles away as the crow flies.

We went for an evening walk out in the middle of the prairie to watch the sunset, where we happened upon an extremely friendly rabbit along the way. No concern for us whatsoever!