May 02nd, 2025

Well Howdy do to you. It's been a little more than a week and my eyes are a little bit better.  We'll see how this goes.

Thought I'd start off with a Photo Safari Report coz, as you can clearly see, Joy and I were out there again, tramping through forests, taking photos, and having a heck of a good time.  Yesterday's hike led us down paths we've ever never seen before, or at least it's been so doggone long that we don't remember them which is practically the same thing.  I will be calling this the Fairyland Hike for reasons you shall soon see.

The vast majority of the hike was along the river's edge.  That's the mighty Myakka River to be specific which is interesting all on it's own.  While the water was moving, it was such a slow, lazy current that the water surface was nearly a mirror. Very cool.  And we saw a few river critters as we went:

So there we are hiking along the water then to our surprise,  the trail began to curve inland and suddenly we were surrounded by wildflowers, some of them waist high! I mean surrounded! They were Everywhere!  The colour, the fragrance and that gorgeous early morning light made us feel as if we had gone through some portal to another world, a Fairyland of sorts.  There were butterflies and dragonflies, bees of all sorts,  and bird song ringing out through the dense forest growth. It was both silent and noisy at the same time.  No sounds of civilization other than our own footsteps but nature makes one heck of a racket all on it's own. It was glorious.

No photo will ever truly capture the magic of that  Fairyland but here's what I have for you:

We were cautious as we trekked along, especially along the water.  The trail is sometimes skirting rrriiiggghhhttt along the very edge of the water and while I'm sure we would survive the fall (dignity schmignity), we would for sure be very wet if we fell in and of course, you never know what's IN the water.  Well, there is this guy of course. Remember him?

And other times, we were stepping and even climbing over downed trees to say nothing of the uping and downing of small hills, bits of muckiness, unsteady precariously placed rocks,  exceptionally narrow pathways and the occasional unknown spider.  We are careful but unafraid.  A little out of breath and sweaty perhaps at times, but that doesn't stop us:

Oddly, while we heard birdsong throughout the hike, we didn't get many bird photos until we were nearly back to where we began!  Still they were worth waiting for. (along with a squirrel and a bunny)

So that's it for the Fairyland Hike, but I do have just a couple of photos that are not from this hike that I haven't shown you yet, so I'll tack them on here.

If you don't mind bearing with me, I think I'm back to posting speed.  I did have to write this up in two sessions to give my eyes a chance to rest part way through which is why this is posting so doggone late !  Sorry about that.  There may be a few more late day posts for awhile, but it feels good to be back!

Have a terrific weekend ya'll!