RVing and Nature in the Suburbs

For my still RVing friends...Saw this on Facebook, shared by Laurie Owens, and just had to share here...

Top 25 signs that you live in a RV! 

You might live in an RV if… 
1) Your GPS is your best friend! 
2) You NEVER know where items are in the grocery store. 
3) You dump your own sewage and it is no big deal.
4) Your family has to ask you where you are when they call.
5) You keep both winter and summer wardrobes because you don’t know where you will end up.
6) You know what snowbirds are and have seen them in their natural habitat.
7) Your HOME has wheels.
 You blog so that YOU will remember where you have been!
9) You look in your pantry and see that you have cereal from New Jersey, pasta from Texas, canned goods from Alabama and crackers from California.
10) You are always the new guy in town
11) You know where to find the best, most reliable internet.
12) You own very little and are proud of that!
13) You follow the warm weather.
14) You hang pictures and decoration on the wall with velcro.
15) You don’t own any figurines or other cutesy stuff that sits on countertops.
16) You have slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
17) You meet up with a family in Virginia that you met in California!
18) You remember friends by what state you met them in!
19) You grocery shop every three days because your refrigerator is so small.
20) You have been to more museums, aquariums, national parks, monuments and zoos than you can remember.
21) You have often “pulled chocks”.
22) You look confused when someone asks you “where are you from?”
23) You get your mail 2-3 weeks late regularly from your mail forwarding service. 
24) You have witnessed your toilet “burping” at you.
25) You crave adventure and can not wait to see what is around the next corner!

Guess I can blame #19 for going to the grocery so much! 

courtesy of the internet

Another update on the turtles, this time green sea turtles....Two years ago, only 19 green turtles nested on the beaches in the area. This year there were 104 turtle nests from Manasota Key to Anna Maria Island. Green sea turtles are having one of the best years ever as far as nesting goes and Sarasota County is the main spot for them. Cool! The east coast of Florida has an even higher concentration of green sea turtles...We have been to the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge south of Melbourne, FL, and so have many other blogging friends. The Carr refuge has more than 13,000 (!) green turtle nests this year!

Most sea turtles are listed as endangered, which means at the brink of becoming extinct and loggerheads are considered "threatened", which means they COULD becoming extinct in the near future.

Loggerheads are much more common than green turtles in Florida. Green turtles are larger than most turtle species, with an average weight of 350 pounds, and they have a very distinctive white underbelly. The green turtle nests look a lot different than the loggerhead nests, and have been compared to a grenade going off as far as how they look.

The volunteers who walk the beaches in the predawn hours looks for signs of hatched nests. Every hatched nest is excavated three days later to record the number of eggs and to look for little hatchlings that didn't make it out. Sparky wants to sign up for turtle patrol! But it means getting up at 5:00 AM, which is just a WEE bit early for her! And it's a very popular retiree volunteer project, they might not need any....the end of October is the end of turtle nesting season, so Sparky might sign up for next year....

And here's a bit of nature in our own backyard, so to speak...just down the street, a half block from our house, we saw this today....hanging out in the pond on our street....

Along with an anhinga, also called the "snakebird" or "American darter"....The females have brown necks...

If you get to close, the female will started posturing, hissing, and swelling her throat to scare you away....But Sparky was more interested in the gator, of course!

This gator was a lot bigger than little Gertie, who had been in the pond a couple of weeks before...Maybe this was her daddy or her mama!

Sparky just loves seeing these gators right in our very own neighborhood. No need to go to Myakka State Park to see the gators, we have 'em right here! Although Sparky still wants to visit the Deep Hole in Myakka. That's a two mile hike into the park interior and two miles back out on foot. She'll have to wait till November when it will be drier on the park grounds. Now, you'd have to swim to the hole, no thank you! (just kidding)...However, the park is severely flooded from the ten inches rain in two days this week so it will be awhile before Sparky heads over there...

And here's a pair of cranes right in our yard. They came within a couple of feet of Sparky, so she plopped down on the grass to get some photos..

This sandhill crane was trying to get some itchy feathers off his back....He's got one in his beak at the moment....

And that's all the nature in our neighborhood for today....See you down the road a bit......thanks for visiting with us now and then....

From the Sarasota Suburbanite to The Delta Swamp Rats

Well, technically, I live in Bradenton, but I was thinking at one point of changing my "off the road" blog, "Millie's Girls" to Sarasota Suburbanite. I just liked the sound of it. We spend a LOT of time in Sarasota, and still do, even though we're off the road and living in Bradenton now....

Went to Ocean Blues a couple of nights ago...It was wonderful as always...They have a new chef, and the food is even more terrific than ever for bar food. We had "Meatball Lollipops" which isn't the greatest sounding name, but it was delicious! Delicious meatballs on buffalo mozzarella cheese with fresh basil on crostinis and shaved parmesan on top. Sorry for the blurry photo..need the new iPhone 5!

Steve Arvey, our favorite blues/jazz/ and miscellaneous anything and everything guitar player was there with Tony Smith, a fantastic harmonica player. The name of their group was the Delta Swamp Rats. Steve was playing a cigar box guitar. Cigar box guitars go back to the late 1880's. They were really made from cigar boxes and had fewer number of strings. Sort of the poor man's guitar back in the day. There's been a resurgence of cigar box guitars and a devoted following of musicians. Steve had a couple with him tonight.

Did you know you can call a harmonica player a harpist if you so choose? I did not know that. Tony was fantastic...He had FIFTEEN harmonicas on stage with him and they were all keyed to a certain note, so all he had to do was pick up the right one to play with Steve.

Together they made fantastic music, lots of Mississippi River/Delta blues or as Steve says...

a mixture of low down dirty blues of the 20's and 30's with modern Mississippi Delta Funk sounds. Cigar Box Screaming Slide Guitar with Big Tone Fat Sounding Harmonica mixed with a Heavy Drum Sound producing a unique sound that entrances people. 

Steve has a wonderful, chameleon like voice. His voice changes for the music that he plays. He's got some high ranges, man! He was the gravelly voiced blues singer this particular night....AWESOME! This duo is so great, they won a contest to represent the Suncoast Blues Society and are going to Memphis for the 2014 International Blues Challenge. We're excited for them!

We had a wonderful time chatting with musicians this evening, and getting to hear Steve and Tony at Ocean Blues was just icing on the cake.......

News From Florida....

"RECORD GATOR CAUGHT!".....Holey Moley! This one's a humongous one! With an ugly mug for sure! BUT, it wasn't caught in Florida, it was caught in Mississippi. Oh, well, you know Sparky loves gators so she just had to share this gator news with ya! Over seven hundred, twenty-seven pounds and thirteen feet and three hours to land him....

Speaking of gators, did you know that truckers refer to blown tire debris as "gators"? The #1 road debris is blown tire pieces on our nation's highways. "Gators" are shredded remnants of 18 wheelers' truck tires. You can see why they call they call them gators after seeing the photo above, can't you? Most of the blown tires come from retreads or capped tires, news sources say. Since a new truck tire can cost 600 dollars or more, and a retread is around 200, you can't blame the truckers for purchasing the cheaper tires. Does it seem like there are a lot more "gators" on the roads these days? In our travels, it sure seemed that way. We've had a couple close calls from tires being blown right as we drove by a rig or two. Trying to avoid road debris is the cause of over 25,000 accidents a year in Canada and the U.S.

Other news....A young man was caught on a passerby's camera, messing with a turtle's nest here in Sarasota. Someone nearby saw him uncovering the nest and taking turtle eggs! He said it was an older nest and he was going to take the eggs home and release them later. Yeah, right, buddy. SHAME, SHAME! There are warning signs posted all over the place. He's a Florida native, he should know better! But, thanks to social media, they found him and fined him. Messing with sea turtle nests is a third degree FELONY, you can receive a fine of up to $5,000 and/or jail time of one to five years in prison. With only one in 1,000 baby turtles surviving birth and the arduous trip from the nest down to the water's edge, it's a miracle they even make it at all. Seagulls swoop in for the kill as the hatchlings make their way to the water if they don't manage to head in the wrong direction or the eggs and hatching babies get eaten by raccoons, fire ants or ghost crabs.

If you missed Sparky's post about the video of sea turtles hatching, be sure to check out her Facebook timeline page where the video is posted. (find me under "Jeannie Sparks") When you see how these little newborns struggle to get over little sand mounds to make their way to the sea, you will be all the more amazed at that they make it at all. No wonder turtle researchers and volunteers who work to help  them want people to fill in their sand castles and digs if they are near the nesting grounds.

OK, this is not really Florida news, but have you seen the cute Chevy "Spark" model cars? They come in Florida colors, at least this one is...Why does it not surprise Sparky that it is mauve? (The color EVERYWHERE in the house we bought!) And look at those pretty multi pastel houses just beyond the car. This was on Anna Maria Island, one of the hottest growing tourist destinations these days and a very charming, beautiful community.

Sparky has heard that pink is passé, and now the new color in vogue for 2014 is "Grape Ice" for this model. She'd be able to find her car in a parking lot a whole lot easier with this one! Jalapeño lime green is another choice for these cute little cars....(Oh, boy, hope she isn't thinking about a new car! says E.) Nope! Just got the Honda paid off, so gonna wait for awhile...Unless the car starts having problems which usually happens when you get the darn thing all paid for, right?

Back to gators again...Eldy just told Sparky that one of the subdivisions not too far from us, Heritage Oaks, sent out a newsletter to their residents to check the community pool before jumping in. Apparently, an alligator thought one of their pools looked very inviting, and decided to go for a swim!
Our community pool is safe, so Eldy went for a swim....a rarity!

And that's all the Florida news that's fit to print for today.....Bye for now....

Love this plant! It's called the Bird of Paradise -- seen all over our neighborhood

Wanna See the Baby Turtles Hatch?

Sparky wishes she could say that she saw them come out...We headed over for a third time to Coquina Beach where there are at least six marked turtle nests. The last time we were there, all six nests were dormant but the signs were still up, so we knew they hadn't hatched yet. This morning, about two weeks later, we were over to the beach early early, before sunrise. Three of the nests had already been hatched. The signs had come down, we knew the babies had come and gone....They usually come out at night, so our chances of seeing them in the early dawn were slim to none.

Somehow, a guy over in Vero Beach happened to be on hand when some baby leatherback turtles started scratching above their heads. He saw the sand moving, trained his camera on the spot, and he caught the very first wave of babies. Here they come! You've gotta watch this, as it's just about impossible to be on hand for an amazing event such as this, and he captured it from start to finish...Thank you, Rick Bryant for sharing with your friends whom in turn, shared it on Facebook and it made its way here. ..Here's the link:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=564407943626810&set=vb.100001728280142&type=2&theater

If that link doesn't work, you can go to my timeline page and see it there....I've watched it several times now, and it is just a wonderful thing to see....Jeannie Sparks

What else is new with Sparky and Eldo? Not too much...we've been going to estate sales AGAIN, and looking for bargains...Sparky saw a pair of "lawyer" bookcases yesterday, for 80.00. The bookcases had the lift up glass windows that slide back so you can get at your books and knickknacks, or stuff, and thought a pair of those would be great for fabric storage in the craft room. Back we went today, thinking we'd catch them at half off, or marked down a bit, but Sparky missed the sale by minutes. SOLD! to another person. Phooey! Oh, well...another bargain might come up again one of these days....Saw a huge jigsaw puzzle that was all about the different kinds of palm trees. Sparky hates jigsaw puzzles, too much concentration required on those 500-1,000 puzzle pieces . so she passed it by, but not before taking just a couple of photos of the box front to learn about some of the palms that are here in Florida. Eldy says he saw somewhere that there are over 2500 species of palm trees and just about all of them can be grown in Florida!

A trip to Hobby Lobby to stock up on fall greens and fall flowers to make wreaths....Finished my daughter's copycat hat from Etsy. Here it is on the original model. She was selling this hat on Etsy for 90.00 but it's no longer available, so I thought I'd try my hand at recreating it for Kerry.

And here's my version. It's barely on my head as my head is too big for it.

Turned out pretty cute, but it will look a lot cuter on her! Hope it fits! And that's all folks, for now.....

Breakfast at the Tiki Hut, Anna Maria Island

Sparky had heard that there can be lots of dolphins seen around Anna Maria Island's piers, about 30 minutes from our house. It was a free fishing day, so we thought there might be LOTS of action both from the fishermen and the dolphins hoping to snag something. Off we went to Anna Maria Island....The first pier is sort of a historical one, but part of it has been shut down due to a restaurant failure and some remodeling issues. Some fishermen still come out to the pier part that's open and they fish...It's a beautiful setting, early in the morning.....We saw one dolphin in the distance....

We went to a larger pier next....The Anna Maria Island Pier...It has a working restaurant on the premises, and the prices were very reasonable. We were too busy looking for dolphins and talking to fishermen to stop and eat there today, but we'll try it another day....Did we see dolphins? Yep! One going down....

And one coming up....

Always interesting things to see and hear on the fishing pier...Not sure what these folks are looking for, but there's SOMETHING down there catching their eye.

If you're lucky, you might hear the latest fishing yarn of the one that got away...Or the one that gave you a fight...Eldy talked to a young man who had caught a small shark last night. The guy was somewhat wasted, wasn't watching what he was doing, and the shark promptly latched onto his wrist and bit him! The guy's friends had to pull the shark off his arm, leaving bloody bite marks.

As it was, walking around the pier, if you are not fishing, you gotta watch out for the arm back, ready- to-cast-swing from all these people fishing. Wonder if they ever hook somebody behind them? Everybody seemed to be careful today, on not hooking a really BIG catch, like Sparky!

reflections from the restaurant window, a safer place to stand!

By this time we were getting hungry..We thought we would eat at the Gulf Drive Cafe...It's totally tiki huts! A big giant one for a big seating area, another big one for the bar, and then individual ones out on the beach. What a setting!

You can eat inside the restaurant, on the boardwalk beside the restaurant, or on the beach. Naturally, we picked the beach....it was GREAT! Food was nothing out of the ordinary, but VERY reasonable prices for breakfast considering the setting. Most places we would have paid double for what we got and for being right out on the beach, your toes in the sand.

We watched the divers out a ways in the water, looking for the remains of a sugar boat down below in the waters...jet skis, paddle boarders, and the birds....

A beautiful morning, a beautiful day...and Sparky got to see her dolphins...And Eldo got to see some bikinis...Although not as many as he would have liked.   :-)

There's a Gator in the Yard! Or Neighborhood Nature Walk

Call the "Gator Boys", Eldy! There's a gator in the yard! The community yard, that is, in the pond that is in front of the condos a half a block down the street. Since our backyard is on the golf course, and we really don't have much of a backyard, just a few feet before we are on the Tara golf course, we probably won't ever see a gator in OUR backyard. But never say never...

Every day, Sparky looks for the neighborhood gator when driving to and from the Publix grocery, which is just five minutes from our house. She has seen this gator several times sunning himself on the grass right by the golf course. (Sparky has this thing about gators, can you tell? asks E.) If she sees the gator, she goes home, hops on the bike, rides like hell to get back as quickly as possible and brings the BIG camera, the one that has a 55-200 mm lens on it. She knows she can't get anywhere near the gator or he'll skedaddle into the water, lickety split.  How does she know that? Because just when she gets back to take his photo, some golfers usually come up on the course, and SWOOSH! He's gone.....And why doesn't she make it a habit to carry the big camera in the car to catch him when she sees him the first time? Because she doesn't want anybody breaking in the car and stealing the camera. There's always the iPhone, but this little gator is too shy to get a good photo with the iphone.

Sparky managed to sneak around the pond today and come up on him on the hill up high. As soon as he saw me come over the hill, SWOOSH! Gone! Boy, can they move FAST! He watched Sparky from the water....

The birds are used to Sparky...

"Here comes that woman agin. She's here almost every day."

"I know, don't look now, but she's here....Maybe she'll get the gator's photo instead of us."

"Too late..sigh...."

The gator is NOT used to people.  Shy and skittish....It's a young one, really not very big. He's more scared of people than people are of him. Floridians are used to gators. They won't bother you if you don't feed them or get too close! Hopefully, no one else has fed the gator you are looking at, or he might associate you with food and come to get some from you! Sparky had her bike to make a fast getaway just in case. Never mind that it was WAY over on the other side of the pond.

Speaking of gators, we went over to Myakka River State Park the other day to look for them on the bridge just after you come into the park. Sparky had first entertained the idea of hiking to the Deep Hole, which is a two mile hike in and a two mile hike back out, to see the hundreds of gators that gather there. After the ranger told her it was extremely muddy and that you would be walking in waist high water the last part of the way to the Deep Hole, Sparky, said, well, maybe another time. The ranger said try in the fall when things have dried up a bit. Guess it was because the Myakka River was almost at flood stage. No gators, no birds, no wildlife to be seen, just lots and lots of water. Some of the campgrounds were flooded, the land on each side of the main road was flooded right up to the edge of the road. We were going to do the Canopy Walk with the cool suspension bridge and the fantastic tower that overlooks the park, but decided we didn't have the right footgear to slosh through the mud and flood. Besides, there were probably LOTS of snakes slithering around in that muck and marsh. So we went to the bird boardwalk and observation deck, and again, no birds. The water was right up to the boardwalk...

We would NOT want to stay in the one campground we saw open with all that standing water around. Bet the mosquitoes are ferocious!

It was a beautiful, although very hot day in the 90's...We saw some beautiful purple marsh flowers, and OH! Almost forgot! We saw a BIG wild boar! Instead of catching the boar through the open car window with the long lens, Sparky decided to get out and get a little closer. The boar heard and saw her coming and ambled off into the deep mucky woods...Bye, bye, boar...

Gonna try getting some photos of dolphins in the next couple of days...No luck with baby turtles, no luck with gators in the park, no boars, no spoonbills lately, time to cycle back to the dolphins on Anna Maria Island. It's snook fishing season, maybe Sparky will have better luck catching a fish or dolphin photo...Bye for now......

It's a Girl!

Sparky read an article in the Sarasota paper about Gatorama, an alligator farm and roadside attraction here in Florida, not too far from us, and something called the Hatchling Festival..An alligator farm is also sometimes called an alligator ranch. They raise alligators for meat, for their leather skins, and other things. All you have to do is mention the word "gator" and Sparky is all ears--WHERE? DID YOU SEE ONE?  Actually, they are in our neighborhood...YUP! A small one in the pond about half a block down our street, in the hood. He (or she) is so scared of people that when anyone comes anywhere near him, he skedaddles back into the pond and submerges himself, waiting for them to go away. Sparky looks for him every day when she rides her bike.

"HOLD AND HATCH A LIVE ALLIGATOR EGG IN YOUR VERY OWN HAND!" Sparky is IN!  LET'S GO! It's only 14.00 a person if you have a coupon from their website. Kids are cheaper.

So where is Gatorama? Sparky wants to know...About an hour and a half from Bradenton, in the middle of nowhere on Highway 27 in Palmdale, FL, which has nothing there but Gatorama. It's just a hair past the middle of the state on 27, just a tad closer to the east coast of Florida. (Like those directions, folks? That's Sparky's way of describing how to get there. For better directions, check out the Gatorama website, explains Eldo.) OK, more like take exit 164 off I-75, take the second stoplight, uh, after that, I can't remember....Oh, never mind...please check the website...

The website gives you plenty of notice that this is an old, Florida roadside attraction, run by Allen and Patty Register and their son, Ben. They have a LOT of different kinds of activities you can do there. So we're thinking, ok, this is going to be a little hokey, but Sparky loves gators, so we're going to check it out anyway. The website is very nicely done. It says to Sparky that they are at least keeping up with the times with their use of technology. We get there at our appointed time at 10:15 AM (you have to make appointments if you want to participate in the Hatchling Festival, which is what we went to see and participate in today) and it was very cool!

But first--there's a 1,000 foot shaded boardwalk to gator watch.....Nothing really unusual about that...

You can see plenty of gators in several ponds...If you've never been to the Everglades and the national park there, this is a great second choice and it's a little easier to get to. Well, ok, it's in the center of the state and about two hours or less from Bradenton.

A lot of the gators were underwater today, but the owner said that there were about 50 crocodiles in the ponds, and lots more alligators. We saw plenty, and as we walked along the boardwalk, they started swimming towards us, thinking maybe it was feeding time....

This was a BIG gator or croc, not sure which!

Lots of ibis around feeding.....those white birds with curved orange beaks and who look like jackhammers when they are feeding....

There are gator feeding shows, but we didn't stay for that....

We came for.... the Hatchling Festival...Sparky thinks this is about the coolest thing she has done and seen....Gatorama is a registered alligator farm and they collect several thousand eggs every year for something called the Hatchling Festival occurring in August each year. They have a special license to do this. They allow the public to come and help the alligator babies hatch. This is an EGGS-a-lent way (GROAN) to see an amazing happening.

Allen Register, the owner, gives a talk first and tells how they collect the eggs, which is part of their gator farm business. It's a dangerous job as you can imagine. In spring, when they can hear the mating bellows of the males as they rise up out of the water, they know that it's time to start collecting eggs soon. Allen has a big walking stick that the guys use to keep the mama gator from charging them as they take the eggs from the nest. They go out hunting for the eggs in pairs but never alone. His description of how they collect the eggs sounded a lot like the Gator Boys show on TV as far as how they manage to keep from being attacked by the upset mama gator. They tap the snout of the female, hold the stick on her snout and she stops and stands her ground. One guy controls her by holding the stick on her snout, while the other collects the eggs. Before they take the eggs from the nest, they mark the tops of them with a horizontal line. The embryos attach themselves to the top of the egg. They have to keep the eggs horizontal while they transport them to the incubators at the farm. If the egg were to rotate, the gator embryo would become detached from the top of the egg, roll to the bottom of the egg and die. Then they back the mama gator into the water by tapping the stick in front of her so they can leave. Allen said the most dangerous part of the job of collecting eggs is battling the fire ants which are usually found in the nest. Fire ants go to higher ground in the summer season to escape flooding waters, and the gator nests are up on higher ground. More egg collectors go to the hospital from fire ant bites than they do a gator attack (!), says the information posted at the farm.

Once they get the eggs back to the incubators, in 90 degree temperatures and 100% humidity, they have about 65 days until they hatch. The hatching time usually corresponds to the Hatchling Festival in August which they have set up so the public can view the babies hatching and actually take part in the process. Allen makes his rounds every day listening for chirping sounds in the eggs. When he hears the chirping and sees little scratch marks at the top of the eggs, he knows they are ready to come out. Gatorama collected over 3,000 eggs this year for the Hatchling Festival. For some reason, maybe because there's been more rain this summer than normal, the hatching came later. It's just getting going and there's only a few days left! Allen had over 2,000 eggs left to hatch, he said today. You call in and pick your day and time when you want to come out, and they make sure the eggs are going to be hatching before you come.

Allen demonstrated how to help the baby gator start to come out. The baby gator has been working on the inside of the shell with a little egg tooth, but Allen made it easier for him to come out by cracking the top of the shell very gently and peeling it back.

He started to peel back the shell, which is surprisingly soft and leathery feeling...It's not a hard shell. It's very rubbery. When this little guy got far enough out of his shell to start squawking...(they actually chirp, not squawk) Allen asked if we could hear the chirping. Are you kidding? These aging ears couldn't hear it until we got to hold our own gators and eggs and got really REALLY close to the little hatchling, like right up next to our ears. They chirp just like little birds.....

After demonstrating a few things about keeping the little baby gator from jumping out of your hands and plummeting to the ground, he had us put on rubber gloves and we got our own eggs and helped the babies hatch! Sparky was nervous! She was afraid she would drop one.

It's a little bloody. One little girl got a little squeamish, (and Sparky's stomach was starting to churn a bit) but not for long when she saw the head start to come out. At first, Sparky thought maybe there would be too much body fluids and blood, so she wasn't going to do it. But after seeing the baby come out of the egg Allen was holding, she swallowed her uncomfortable feelings and really got into it! (It costs 10.00 extra to hold the egg and hatch the baby gator. Well worth it!)

The babies are wrapped around themselves three times inside the shell. When they come out, they come out quietly and slowly, or they come out flipping around, chirping and excited to be here. Every one of them has a different personality, just like human babies.

When they hatch, they can swim immediately, can eat immediately, and sometimes have a little feisty attitude. They don't have any teeth yet but their one egg tooth, but they will latch onto your finger. It doesn't hurt at all. What's cool about that, is that even as a newborn, after latching onto your finger, they go into a mini "death roll" just as the adult gators do with their prey. They have that gator "death roll" thing in their genes...The death roll is where they take their prey in their mouth, and then do a circular roll by whipping the tail around and down to the bottom of the pond, river, etc. where they will feed on what they've caught. We saw the baby latch onto Allen's finger, then whip his little tail around and do the baby "death roll"! which meant a little flipover in Allen's hand. :-)

Now, Sparky's little buddy.... He took his time coming out of the egg. As a matter of fact, he didn't seem to want to come out. The other babies took a flying leap out of their eggs, and the adults and kids holding them had to gently circle their necks with their fingers so they wouldn't jump out of the egg and plummet to the ground before we could get them into the water tank. But Sparky's little gator, a little girl (you have to tell them they are ALL girls, explains E.), just waited to be helped out of her egg or just decided she was going to let Sparky do all the work, don't know which.

Oh, my gosh, she's starting to come out!

She's going to jump!

And-----IT'S A GIRL!

It turns out she was a late bloomer. She had a FULL row of tiny tiny little teeth all the way around, and she apparently should have hatched about a week before.

They are all girls because the eggs are incubated at the farm at 90 degrees, which determines that the egg will become a female. Females are easier to raise in captivity and get along better than the males, so that's why the farm controls the egg temperature in the incubation area.

We put them in the water tank and watched them swim or just float around lazily. The egg stays attached to the baby by a tiny little umbilical cord for a few hours for an extra food source. After awhile, it will get snagged on something and detach, or just detach naturally.

It was an amazing and fantastic experience! Sparky HIGHLY recommends it. Well worth the little day trip coming and going to get there and see this...AWESOME!

"Come back and see me NEXT year!"

"Are you my momma?"