Country life nice😊

I love the countryside. Country areas anywhere in the world. 

Maybe its my love of animals which causes me to find these parts so attractive. Problem is, this love only exists in the daytime, as being in the country at night is quite scary.  

When you live there, I mean, not when visiting with lots of friends around.

Phoebe Snow

It never used to be this way with me before I had a traumatic break-in and had no neighbors with lights to illuminate the darkness outside.

 Not a little light anywhere. 

So now if I can’t see a neighbor’s light outside, such places are not for me to live in.

Even driving in the country areas alone at night is quite discombobulating. For I always think that if I get a puncture or some other problem, some serial killer is going to come along and make my live miserable.

That’s what happens when you are addicted to shows like Criminal Minds, CSI, Forensic Files, Dateline etc.  

These programs I enjoy but they can be hazardous to your peace of mind.😊

Sandy

Why am I rambling so much, you may very well ask?😏

I just had another few wonderful days with friends in the country- side, that’s why.

This was in Sebring, Northern Florida, where a friend and I drove to for three hours, to surprise another friend on her birthday. (22/10/). 

When I go to places like that in the USA, I always hope to see a black bear or two, but never have such luck. On this trip, my disapointment was made even worse, when another friend showed me that her security camera had picked one up a few days before, right across the street.

There's a black bear behind the SUV!

Well, I saw no bears, but I met two very nice horses. 

The white one is Phoebe Snow and the darker one Sandy.

They are so friendly that when my host Cardiff called them and just held out his hand with some grass, they came trotting rapidly towards him. 

They even allow his grandson to ride them, I hear.

 Lovely horses. Pity I can’t ride, as the last time I mounted a horse, the saddle was slack, I slid off and he nearly stepped in my head.

Now I play with them but resist the temptation to mount!

It was good to see that Sebring escaped the devastation of hurricane Ian. It did pass through but only tore down some branches and added some water to the creeks and lakes.

Where I stayed with friends, I had previously avoided going down to the creek on the property because it is a hangout for wild boars, rattle snakes and other unfriendly types. 

Since my host recently acquired an ATV though, we got a proper tour of the back of his large, forested property, and all was well.

There were fallen trees and others were missing branches, but nothing serious and the creek actually had a good amount of water in it this time.

Yup, those few days in the countryside with friends around were really refreshing.

Occasions like this always make me want to move from the city.

Then night falls. 😊

A PICTORIAL TOUR

 

Christmas 2021

At an air show in Sebring

 I can't keep up with how time is flying, for I had no idea so much time had passed since my interesting and enjoyable Christmas visit to Sebring, covid and all.

Last Christmas, I was invited to spend the holidays with my best friend and her family, who had recently relocated from the crowded city to a rustic section of Sebring in Florida. This is some two hours away from where I live in Broward County.

 Also spending Christmas there, were her family from Costa Rica. I had met them all in Costa Rica, and it was certainly great to see them again.

This wasn't my first trip to Sebring, as I did visit that beautiful area some years ago to attend an air show. On another occasion, I visited nearby Lake Placid, which has an annual Caladium festival. (Joan, my views: Search results for lake placid (joan-myviews.blogspot.com)

However, where we were this time, was off the beaten track, where deer and bears roam but where there is no good wifi reception or cable tv to disturb the peace.

These bears were caught on a neighbor's camera in October

The bears there are black bears and according to the records, there has never been any report of these bears killing people in Florida. So, I was most anxious to see one up close and personal, especially after our host showed us a bear's footprint in his backyard. 

But to my disappointment, it was not to be. 

A bear's paw print

More frustrating was the fact that a neighbor sent us pictures of the bears that her outside camera had picked up in her backyard. ,

Damn.

The entire area is beautiful though, with lots of lakes and open spaces.

Anyway, back to Christmas.

 It sure is cold in that area, so on our first night as we sat on the patio, our host Cardiff, suggested that we test out his outdoor heater, as he had a lot of dried wood which had been cleared from the property before the house was built.

It was fun but we still had to bungle up in blankets as the only thing missing was snow. 😁

I have to admit that it did eventually warm up and we had a lot of fun, especially on Christmas Eve and Christmas day when it was time to open presents. 

The girls pose in their pj's

Then disaster struck for I picked up what I still insist was the flu. It kept me in bed for three days with a fever, stuffy nose and sore throat. Then my friend who had been nursing me, came down with similar symptoms plus body aches and stomach problems.  Anxiously, we tried to find somewhere to do a test for covid, but everywhere was closed for the holidays.

Since I returned home, she has been confirmed as suffering from covid and some two weeks later she has not recovered. To make matters worse, since then too, her daughter and son-in-law have tested positive as have her Costa Rican relatives, since their return home.

So yes, it was a great Christmas in that I spent it in a lovely, peaceful environment with good friends, (though not seeing any bears!)  And naturally there was lots of Christmas food plus exotic Costa Rican dishes, and I even got some Spanish practice too to boot.

What was not so great, is that the disgusting covid became an uninvited guest and is still lingering around.

Memories.

A Park at Old Sebring

Church at Old Sebring

She was happy to find a discarded Halloween pumpkin

At Lake Charlotte

Lake Charlotte in background

Trying to keep warm at Sebring

Lake Jackson

 

KENYA: THE MOST AMAZING OUTDOORS

In my many decades on this earth and years of traveling, I have never seen more outstanding natural beauty than in Kenya, in East Africa. 

Majestic snow-covered Mount Kilimanjaro in the background (a Denis Bouillon photo)

Our Maasai guide and driver

In this featured photo, not only is the elegance of a giraffe in the wild captured, but in the background shines Mount Kilimanjaro (killi to local folk.) The irony is, according to our Maasai guide, if Tanzanians, in whose country this scenic mountain is located, want to get a  really outstanding view, they have to come to into Kenya.

 For while geographically, it is located in Tanzania, they claim this only happened because of British Royal politics. For when that empire was carving up Africa, the queen dropped that mountain into Tanzania as a favor to a cousin of hers, since Kenya already had Mt. Kenya the second highest on the continent. This may just be interesting folklore but the fact that the Kenyans have a much more graphic view, makes it believable.

Kilimanjaro at 5985 meters above sea level, (almost 20,000 feet) is the tallest free standing mountain in the world and Africa's highest. It is described as a dormant volcano, although the last eruption is recorded at 150,000 to 200,00 years ago! 

Anyway, back to the natural beauty of Kenya.

Thankfully, the government there is doing everything in its power to preserve its wildlife and environment for generations to come. This is a never-ending task, as poachers from all over the world are constantly trying to frustrate their efforts.

So now, all the parks which fall under Kenya Wildlife Service,  are patrolled by heavily armed rangers who are not afraid to shoot to kill. 

My host Denis, stands atop one of the piles of ashes

They also seize their illegal booty, which includes ivory from elephants and rhinos. 

These are then burnt to take the profit out of poaching. 

We actually visited one of these sites in Nairobi National Park. Here the tons of ivory are reduced to mere ashes. 

Also, no one is allowed to feed the wild animals or take any dead or alive from the parks. To ensure that human carnivores are not deprived, livestock farming in quite vast there, but these farms can only operate if licensed.

A lion relaxes in Nairobi National Park

Admirably, it is not only their wildlife that they are concerned about, but indeed the entire environment. So, for example, plastic bags are no longer used and one-use plastic bottles are not allowed in any of their parks or conservancies.

They also do a lot to encourage their own citizens to enjoy the natural beauty of their country, by establishing numerous parks and forests all over and while outsiders pay large entrance fees, residents normally pay no more than about 1/10th of what the visitors do, to enter those establishments. 

Wildebeests at Amboseli National Park

Kenya is a huge country of 580,367 square kilometers (224,081 square miles) with a population of 50-60 million. 

To tell the truth, it was never on my bucket list to visit immediately, for as a Jamaican who descended from slaves brought from Africa, my first choice had been countries in West Africa, from whence our forefathers were kidnapped and forcefully brought to my island, Jamaica and the west in general. 

However, when my Canadian friends Kelly and Denis, who are as enthralled as I am about natural beauty, started posting the breath-taking photos of Kenya and invited me to visit, wild horses couldn't stop me,

And its probably one of the best decisions I have ever made, for the parks and conservatories I visited during an all too short two week stay, defied my imagination totally.

Local Kenyans on a trek up the steep Ngong mountain 

The special wildlife areas visited were; Nairobi National Park and Orphanage in the middle of the capital city; Lake Nakuru National Park which borders the city of Nakuru, the third largest city in the country; Amboseli National Park near the Maasai conversancy of Selenkay; (I have to do an entire blog on this!) Lake Elementia and Soysambu conservancy.

Incidentally, Kenyans so love our own Usain Bolt, that they actually named a cheetah in the Nairobi National  Park Usain Bolt! 

A bus clearly owned by a Bolt admirer

I was really fascinated that they had such a large wildlife park so close to the city, although some power now seems determined to mar the vista of that park by constructing a huge concrete rail system right through the center. 

This rail system is being designed to straight through to Uganda.

Nakuru, Lake Elementia and Soysambu are all located in the famous Rift Valley, a fascinating place that I had only read about but never dreamt of being able to visit.

The huge concrete train line being constructed through Nairobi National Park

The scenery along the road to get there is lush with well laid out tea plantations, vendors' ware, forests and lots of animals roaming on the sides of the roads.

We also passed through a number of small towns which reminded me very much of scenes in Jamaica. For up front, there were huge open-air markets where vendors laid out large batches of familiar-looking fruits, vegetables and ground provisions.

Sheep and cow skins also displayed in a stall on the roadside

Once we got to the sanctuaries and parks, watching, buffalo, zebras, baboons, monkeys, rhinos, giraffes hippos, every type of antelope etc. in their own natural environment, was to die for.

To get there was a bit challenging though, for while the roads are excellent, for part of the journey,  we had to maneuver between the hundreds of trucks that use a section of the that route to transport goods from Port Mombasa to Uganda and Rwanda, which are landlocked.

This looks like a scene from any Jamaican village

Kenya also has 1300 different species of birds and at the Natural History museum in Nairobi, they have stuffed displays of every single one. 

We also saw quite a number of these colorful creatures in the wild, one memorable scene was seeing a daring kite bird trying to chase a juvenile eagle out of it nest!

Video of some of the scenery along the way to Nakuru.

On this trip too, I gleaned a number of fun facts about animals in the wild. A summary is below.

Some of the 1300 bird species on display at the museum

      

Link;   https://youtu.be/W13GpOB4v9E

FUN FACTS

The white rhino is the 2nd largest land animal in the world (average 4.5 tons). It is not actually white in color but was misnamed by a South African who mispronounced 'wide' in describing how it's mouth is different from the black rhino. Despite this, the black and white rhinos do not get along! 

The white rhino also performs the lengthiest sex act, much longer than zebras which are as well endowed as donkeys, but operates on the basis, slam, bam thank you maam.😂

A Denis Bullion photo

Male buffalo horns start in the center of the head while the females horns start  close to the ears.

Most antelopes operate in harems with numerous females being serviced by one dominant male. However the little Dik Dik is so monogamous that it stays with its partner for life. When its mate dies, it stops eating and mopes to the point where it becomes easy prey for predators. 

Many animal watering holes are made by the huge elephants wallowing in the mud during the rainy season. An elephant is also so adept at using its large trunk that it can easily pick up something as small as a blade of grass, to huge objects with it.

An elephant at a watering hole

Also, elephants walk on tiptoes hence, despite their huge size, they move around silently.

Lions rarely attack humans unless provoked.

The giraffe's tongue appears to be blue as its pink tongue and the green leaves it feed on, gives it that color.

And lastly, many acacia trees are shaped according to how the giraffes feed on them. 

This acacia tree is tall in the middle as the giraffes feed around the edges

Link; https://youtu.be/W13GpOB4v9E

SOME GREAT OUTDOOR PHOTOS TAKEN BY DENIS BOUILLON

Flamingos partially cover Lake Nakuru

Vervet  aka blue balls monkey

A monogamous Dik Dik

Link; https://youtu.be/W13GpOB4v9E