Gators = Florida's official critter?

Since arriving in Orlando, I feel like a lazy bum; the last two mornings I've taken hubby to Disney World and haven't picked him up until the park closes. In between I've been enjoying our new location and just taking it easy.

I have gone fishing twice in the small pond behind the townhouse. When I first asked about fishing in the pond, the lady at the desk in the clubhouse seemed appalled because she said 'There are alligators in there!'. Well, that could be a little bit of a deterrent; however, I decided to find out more.

I mentioned I was at Walmart in the sporting goods department talking to the employee who was at the counter. Now he was a great one to talk to because he has a lot of experience fishing in the area. If you ever look at a map of Florida you will see it has a tons of lakes.

So I asked the clerk about 'gators and he said you only have to worry about the gators in the spring when it's mating season. He said they get pretty testy at that time as they search and compete for a mate. The rest of the time the gators would rather not mess with a human. Well this made me feel a lot better about trying some fly casting in the small pond on the property.

I asked how I would know if the pond had fish or had been stocked with fish; at this the clerk chuckled and informed me that the whole state of Florida sits on reef type of material and that most if not all the lakes are connected underneath the ground. He gave me the example of the pond in his area being completely drained and when there was no water, there were no fish, gators, etc. According to him when the pond was refilled, all the aquatic life was back because they had an underground system to use to move.

He also said if I saw egret birds at the side of the pond that it's  sure sign of fish. They wait for the smaller fish to come near shore and the smaller fish come near shore to get away from the bigger fish. Here's a picture of my little pond and there are a lot of egrets fishing on the edge.

I then talked to a gentlemen here at the clubhouse about fishing and gators and he said he's been here over 2 years and only seen one gator in the area where I will be fishing. The gator was only about 4 feet long. So the good news is I'm not afraid to go fishing, but the bad news is I don't want to take the dogs because I've seen gators in the water and when the dogs get close to the water the gators start swimming closer.

I haven't caught anything yet, but I'm still experimenting with which fly to use. I could see fish nibble at my bait today, so I think it's just a matter of time before we have a fish dinner! I'm sure getting a lot of good use out of the rod I was recently given as a gift by the folks at Casting for Recovery.

Today the dogs and I saw 3 sandhill cranes calmly walking in the parking lot where we live. They didn't seem too bothered by the dogs, but the dogs were on leash.

I took my mom to lunch today and had a nice drive along the back roads from Orlando to Tavares. Mom is happy I'm in the area for a while.

Here is a picture of the gate where we enter and leave and also a picture of Muffy on the walking path here; I hope I don't lose her!

The Magic Kingdom

We arrived in the late afternoon on Sunday at the place we will be renting for a month. This place is very close to Disney World which was our objective.

We unloaded all the stuff we had in the car and then I went exploring while hubby took a much deserved nap. He has driven this whole trip! I headed for the clubhouse pool area; there I met some lovely people from Scotland. We had a very nice chat; too bad they are leaving today for home:-(
Since we're going to be here for a whole month I'll post pictures of the area slowly. We are renting a townhouse in a gated community. This morning we took hubby to Disney World and dropped him off for the day. We are less than 10 miles from the heart of the park; I will stay at the townhouse and put things away and go shopping for necessities.

There is a great pool area here and they have 'spa day' twice a week. The dogs and I took a little walk on the nature walk path after we dropped off hubby. Hubby will probably film half the day and then come back to the condo for a rest and then go back to film some more.

The townhouse is 3 br and 2.5 baths; we got the lead to it on Craigslist. We put an ad for a place and we also look for places. In this case the owner of this townhouse contacted us from out ad. We post a picture of the two of us and the dogs so people can picture the type of people they are renting their property. This works well for them and for us. I've successfully used Craigslist for several things; you do need to be careful in some cases due to potential scams.

Later today I went to Walmart for some essentials for the townhouse, while I was there I stopped and talked to an employee in the sporting goods department. I asked him about fishing laws and techniques in Florida. Turns out that the little pond right behind my townhouse is a great place to fish. Since it is on private property and the property is gated, no license is needed! Yipee, glad I brought my rod!