(Isn't reality brutal sometimes?) I've been unsuccessfully trying to distract myself from the fact that I am home and St. Lucia is still down there somewhere, by continually looking at our vacation photos. However, real life keeps creeping in.
There are two other mouths in this house that want to be fed on a regular schedule.
There are laundry piles that grow even if I refuse to acknowledge that they are there.
Somebody keeps messing up the house, even though it was clean when I left on vacation.
There are dishes piling up in the sink.
That darn grass keeps growing, and the marigolds need dead-heading.
There are bills that need to be paid.
So I am allowing myself this one last sharing of Postcards From St. Lucia: Wildlife. Then I must face real life
I've already shown plenty of shots of underwater life from a previous post so I won't show more of those. We did see a few other interesting animals throughout our stay, though.
We often saw natives riding their horses along the ocean's edge. On one of our excursions, our guide explained that many of the young men there own a horse, just as we might own a dog for a pet. To them it is somewhat of a status symbol. These riders were trying to find vacationers that might pay for a watery ride.
We noticed a family of cats that seemed to be living on the resort. A staff member gave us the inside scoop, telling us that Sandals actually feeds these cats. Apparently having a few cats on the property helps to eliminate undesirable rodents.
One day we were lounging around the pool. I looked up into the tree above me and saw this colorful guy. Upon further examination, we discovered several other family members of his elsewhere on the same tree.
Lizards were everywhere. Well, not in our room this time, like they were last year in Jamaica and previously in Trinidad. They blend in so well with their surroundings most of the time, that you aren't usually aware they are even there unless they move.
And whoops - a native stuck this grasshopper in my face one day, expecting a contribution. There is obviously some real poverty in St. Lucia, and some people will do just about anything to make a buck.
We saw this fish while visiting Marigot Bay on the western coast of the island. Its length was about 18 inches or so.
These little black and yellow birds were often seen flitting about, sort of how we see plenty of common sparrows in Pennsylvania.
A couple of times we spotted hermit crabs, even crawling across our patio at times. Finding them always delighted us, as we've previously only seen them sold up on the boardwalk in the surf shops at the New Jersey beaches. I don't know exactly why, but they always made me smile when I'd see them moseying along, heading who knows where.
On our last morning there, this bird arrived to say farewell and to wish us well. Perhaps a reader can identify this bird for us.
Ok, I'm done. The vacation is but a memory, and certainly a good one, but it's time to move forward.
It's time to cook some meals, wash some dirty laundry, tidy up the house, and pay those bills.
"Learn a lesson from your dog. No matter what life brings you, kick some grass over that sh*t and move on." - Unknown
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