Unexpected visitor…

This bird-themed post goes out to my parents, who are celebrating their anniversary today.

We returned home yesterday evening and found Dobie and Buster alive and well, the house a tad bit stuffy, and the garden exploding with new growth and flowers. One unexpected treat was the mourning dove that I startled on our balcony. It would seem that mama dove has staked out a nest in our New Zealand flax (which is flowering for the first time, fyi). There are two white, quarter-sized eggs in the nest. We’re now a wildlife sanctuary.

Also, its SOOOOOO nice to let my photos tell the story versus all the writing we’ve done over the past two-and-a-half weeks. The journal style was fun though, and thanks for the encouraging feedback. I’ll get to the trip photos slowly. I’m estimating about 2100 images! (For reference: last year in Italy, we took about 1300 images.) Needless to say, a reasonable “slide show” size will be around 100-125 images, so there is much work to be done. Self-editing is the real trick of expert photography.