Hi John,
Thank you for the wonderful advise. I was indeed badly burnt during the Asian Financial Crisis. It was not pleasant at all.

I knew it order to fight fear, we have to learn how to make the fear become our friend and to live along with it....

Sarawak has not been truly developed on the whole. It is still a nice place to be with if you like nature. Nice coastline and bountiful of greens. I would like to travel there too.....one day.

Regards

Wishing you and your loved ones peace, health, happiness and prosperity in the coming New Year.

Hi John,

A Happy New Year to you. I just got a letter from West Ewell the other day. What is your knol going to be about?

A knol on building canoes sounds interesting. I have a friend who wants to rehabilitate a canoe. I believe it is made out of fiberglass. Another friend has an old wooden canoe hanging over the door of her former antique shop.

It sounds like you have a lot to offer knolstuff. Also, the wildlife you have sounds like you live in a rural area. We have neighborhood wildlife (raccoons, possums, snapping turtles, snakes, hawks, wood ducks, mallards, skogies, anhingas,egrets and wading birds). There aren't any alligators in the pond, so the ducks do pretty well. There are alligators around this area, though. The little garden spots are full of lizards and amphibians, and squirrels and songbirds visit sometimes. The lizards especially like living around the aloe.

It is safer to canoe in the wintertime, when the alligators are more sluggish, and many people do. Alligators generally avoid people, unless people feed them. They are more docile than crocodiles. If you feed an alligator, the alligator will think humans mean food. Then, when they see a person, they will eat a dog, a cat, occasionally a very small child, or attack the person. Feeding an alligator or showing it to a child just isn't too smart. It also is not smart to mess with young alligators, because their mothers are protective. I just mind my own business and the alligators mind theirs. I lived near a canal with twelve foot alligators not eight feet from my front door about a year ago, and I was never attacked.

Fascinating! Are you somewhere in the Southern States ? I'm in England, in the Midlands. We have no dangerous animals around us at all, except perhaps adders, most people go their whole lives without seeing one..
John