Babcock Ranch just 4 weeks later

The family went to the closet real ranch near us for a fun fill quick trip. It was totally awesome, beautiful, peaceful, exciting and fun. We got to stay the night in the Cypress Lodge which was the home of Mr. Babcock before he died. It was very nice in the ranchy kind of way. They fed us dinner Friday night and then went on a tour of the property the next day. O'lean had a blast because it was new and she could just run around and play.

Here she is knocking on the door. She just learned how to do it and was practicing. She knocks on all the closed doors now expecting someone to open.
So this lodge was pretty much on an island surrounded by a swamp. And what animal happens to lives in swamps? Yep-er-roony alligators. The Lodge had a wraparound porch that look down onto the swamp and there were two adult alligators and i think 5 or 6 babies. It was really neat. They just hung out until one of the boys would catch a fish the babies wanted or even catch the babies. Yeah, big momma didn't like that one. Here is a picture of one of the babies. I could have watched them all day. I think i pretty much did.
So the boys thought it would be fun to fish of the balcony until Bryan caught an owl. Well actually the owl caught Bryan. He grab his bate and flew into a tree and proceeded to get the hook out. It took him about 10 minutes but he got and then took off. I tried to take a picture but it was too dark.
Here is the fam sitting down and eating dinner. Just wait until you see what we had....
Did I mention it was a cattle ranch????!!!
Beat steaks ever!
Like I said we got to go on a tour of the property on Saturday. It was really nice. It was torture for O'lena because she just had to sit there but it was nice for the big kids. Did you know that the Babcock Ranch has the largest herd of Cracker Cattle in Florida? I was paying attention!

They even let us touch a baby alligator. It was pretty cool. O'lena was like, "giveme that alligator." Yes, O'lena is wearing camo. We are on a ranch!
I think everyone can agree we had a nice time. I would defiantly go again, just to hang out with the gators.