After two and a half weeks living on another river pet sitting I am back home again. I really enjoy coming home and being back among my things and in my own bed. Much as I love all the lovely homes I stay in and the great pets I care for nothing can take the place of home. I find i don’t stop by my apartment after the first week into a long job as I get a little homesick even though I am usually only five to thirty five minutes from home. I do love staying other places as I get to enjoy other things I like that I don’t have-like a screened in porch, a hot tub, different tv channels, new books, and new music. I also get to check out wildlife and birds. I watched this particular home over the winter and the river was filled with Canadian geese, bufflehead ducks, wood ducks and diving ducks. There were so many geese and buffleheads swimming in the river they filled it almost from riverbank to riverbank. They are all gone now. Most have migrated north. I only see a few resident Canadian geese but now the Osprey have moved in along with Great Blue Herons and Cormorants. When I got to my home this evening I heard owls calling. I love listening to owls. The top picture is a mockingbird nest I found in a shrub in the garden. She is sitting on eggs now.

We had a few thunderstorms roll through today. The sky turned a magnificent gray black before thunder clapped and the rain let loose. Followed by lighting. It started as the kind of lighting that was blinding flashes and you could not tell where it was coming from but you were glad you were inside. It stormed for about an hour while I got ready for work. I have a healthy respect for the weather and have only been truly frightened by it three times in my life. One was a blizzard, another a hurricane and a third when I was in the Midwest during tornado season. Thankfully where I live hurricanes, tornados and blizzards are not too common but severe thunderstorms are. I have seen some spectacular lighting storms while living here. Tonight I was treated to a lovely display of lighting while driving home. The stars were out but you could see a frontal cloud where lighting was spreading through the sky and jumping cloud to cloud not yet leaping to the ground. I sat in my car and watched it dance across the sky for a while. It is good to be home.