Hanging With 1,000 Pound Manatees

Look, look!

It's—

y'all, do not peek at that! Oh my God!

Sadly, today is the day we leave Pete and Melissa at Green Dreams. This place has been absolutely amazing. I mean, look at this view. Look at this view out there. I mean, you can't— you can't look anywhere and see a bad view. Hey, you guys gonna drive us today? These are our drivers. Hey, you guys notice something different about their hair? Haircut. He's got a little bed head. Haircut. This guy's got him a haircut. You guys look good.

Thanks.

Melissa used to be a hairdresser. Let me tell you though, she hung on to her skills. Mom's grooming them a little bit. I gotta show you guys this. Go on, Mr. Brown. That's right. He just used that doggy door like that's what you're supposed to do with it.

His eyes.

Yeah!

Do you want to say goodbye to your buddy Gavin?

Bye.

Come on, give a hug. Give a hug.

Aww.

Come on.

Lily?

Come on, Lily. Give him some love. Give him some love. We'll miss you, Gavin. I'll miss you too. Weird days we're living. In the morning we say goodbye to precious people. In the afternoon we say hello to precious people. What a bittersweet day. Goodbye, Melissa. You've been a wonderful host.

Gonna miss you guys.

You too.

We're gonna miss you so much. And you guys, she's an herbalist and she makes herbal products. And so it's Magic Sunshine and Magic Herb Co. But it's sunshinemagicherbco.com.

Oh, so you ship all over the world?

I will be shipping all over the world. We'll be up, we'll be up and running here hopefully in the next 2 weeks.

Okay, cool. And she gave you some. It's awesome.

So I have some samples, so I'm gonna try them out. I'm excited.

Oh, look who's here just in time as we're about to walk out. Is this the goodbye? This is, this is the goodbye. I'm gonna miss you guys. It's been real. I know. And lots of fun. We're gonna miss you guys. Yeah, it's not gonna be as warm where you're heading now. You better be, uh, chasing that warm weather. Frost is going away slowly. What's up, Mr. Brown? We're gonna miss you, buddy.

Can you give him 5?

Alright!

Could you give him a hug?

Do I get a hug? Oh yeah, give him a hug. Oh, it's a good one, buddy. That's a good one. Thank you.

You did it.

Pete's been trying all week for a hug. We traveled about 40 minutes north. And we're meeting up with a fan. She's gonna take us on a tour. A bus ride? Let's introduce you.

A boat ride.

Boat ride. Bus ride. What am I thinking? Bus ride. Boat ride. To see the manatees. Can you tell me your guys' names?

I am Tasha Bush.

I am Lily Bush.

Oh, you're ready. You ready to be in the vlog? Okay, you aren't shy, are you? No. So we're just having a little bit of a lunch and then we're gonna go see these manatees. Is the captain ready?

The captain will be ready at 1 o'clock, and I tell them because we have a bunch of kids, 1:15.

Okay.

I brought them honey. Um, my husband and I raise bees here in Citrus County, and we take our bees around the entire county throughout the year and we collect 6 different unique wildflower blooms, so I brought them a honey tasting today.

Ooh!

Okay, you must be Captain Sean.

Yeah, man, good to meet you.

I'm Justin.

Good to meet you, man.

Nice to meet you. Nice. I'll give you a hand. Go on down.

Watch your step, watch your step. Come here, bud.

Go inside there.

How you doing, miss?

That's Lily too.

Hey, you're not gonna hold me down?

No, it's not that strong.

Where's my help, huh?

5 African spider monkeys right here. Look, look at the monkeys, Mr. Brown. Yeah, look, look right over here. Come on, come up here. He's chilling on the boat looking at you guys.

Monkey!

See the monkey?

Yeah.

You ever seen a monkey before, Mr. Brown?

Monkey! Monkey!

I have seen them.

I have seen them before. Listen, you know what I think we should watch out for?

What?

Any kind of manatee.

Yeah, we're on a hunt for the manatees.

You guys want to start looking for noses popping up, look for backs logging out of the water, look for footprints on the top of the water.

Ah!

We got a manatee right here. See the footprint right at the top of the surface? You can see him kind of moving there. You see the water boiling on top of the surface?

It's kind of going right here.

Just saw one. We just passed one, guys. Did y'all see it?

I did.

Okay, he's got to back up.

He's probably just chilling out, probably feeding along the bottom right now is what he's doing. They got to eat about 10 to 15% of their body weight in a day.

Whoa, a lot.

Yeah, it's about anywhere from 100 to 200 pounds of vegetation a day, and they come in to get warmed up. They do, yeah. They'll come sit up in the springs because the springs stay 70 to 80 degrees all year round.

There he is coming up to the surface. Nice. Right here in front of us, guys. Everybody see it?

I am.

Look, you can see his footprints. You can see what they're calling footprints right there.

See the baby and mom right there on the other side? 4 of them all together right there, guys.

Cow.

There's 5 over here, guys. Here they come. They're gonna go right under the boat.

Oh, look, they like the algae on this boat.

Clean off the bottom of the boat.

Man, that was cool. We're getting so fortunate with wildlife on this trip, but it's time to head back. We still got a long way to go.

We are back back on dock.

Did you guys have a good time?

Yeah.

Okay, everybody say thank you, Captain Sean.

You guys are welcome.

Thank you very much for coming out. Thank you, Sean.

Yeah, no worries, guys.

So folks want to follow you or get a tour, where should they go?

Check us out on Facebook, guys, or you can go to mellowmangrovechartersllc.com.

Okay, and I will leave a link to his Facebook down below. Hey guys, thank you so much for taking us out on the boat ride. Tasha, that was amazing. It's always good to meet our extended family.

Thank you so much.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you. You want to say bye?

Say bye-bye.

Have you told them your joke yet?

What's the joke?

I know, I saw that. What kind of bees make milk?

Boobies. I like it.

Fitting.

Bye, buddy!

Thanks for going with us.

We had a good time on the boat. We're about to set out again on the road. Hey, we're back!

Hey, you're back!

We couldn't get enough of you.

We have a surprise for you.

You do?

We do.

What is it?

A baby horse. Oh yeah, less than 24 hours old.

Sweet.

Yeah, Lily bred her mare like 11 months ago, and little did we know it'd show up the day you came back on time.

And you know how I got Mr. Brown to be quiet the last 20 minutes? The horsey.

A horse.

You're gonna go see the horses. All right. I didn't know there was a baby. You want to see the baby horse? Yeah, I've been informed that a baby female horse is a filly, so that's what we've got here. Y'all remember Dennis?

Yeah, and this is Tally, our daughter Lily's horse. And this baby was born last night sometime, about to nurse. Yeah, and, uh, less than 24 hours old. Babies are always welcome on the farm.

Oh yeah, so much fun.

Such a happy time when a baby is born on the farm. Lily, you see the, uh, you see the filly nursing? You like that?

Right away Lily started doing that, like petting its face and getting it used to being touched and handled. So that's why you can go up to it and pet it.

Okay, so the sooner you do that, the better.

It's called imprinting, and they spend some time immediately at birth and then 3 times in the first 24-48 hours. Okay, so you imprint them.

Does that work the same with a calf?

I don't know, but it's more important with a horse because you've developed such a close relationship with a horse, you know, and riding it and everything.

It's so cute. Good job, Lily. Oh, so soft.

Obviously we're going to have a great time here. Gonna be here several days. Tomorrow, getting up with Dennis, gonna help him milk the cows.