Unexpected Visitor

Sunday at church as I was listening to the message on work ethic out of Titus a slight movement distracted me. At first I thought perhaps it was a cockroach (as it's the season and they seem to be invading everywhere), but once my eyes focused to the far corner of the gym I saw that it was a lizard slowly making it's way from behind the speakers and towards the front row of seats. When it reached the bright orange extension cord it paused for quite a while and I imagined it contemplating the words it was hearing.

Well, by now several people were distracted with really odd looks on their faces... so odd that the speaker was wondering if it was their message! Nope... we were just all waiting to see where this guy would go and if it would catch a few people by surprise that they let our a shriek. That didn't happen, thank goodness. After a few minutes the guy set out on his way again, but not before a friend got this picture to document the event. ;)

Empty Nest

This morning I woke up to find that the pigeon's had abandoned their nest on my balcony. Between mom and dad they'd dutifully incubated the eggs for over 23 days and were never away from the nest more than a few minutes.

When I looked outside this morning the pigeon was hovering nearby and looking down at the nest, but after an hour it was clear they'd given up on them hatching. So that left me with the sad duty of disposing of the eggs. =( I did candle them and found that one was never fertilized and the second was only half-developed. Sad day indeed.

A couple of hours later the mama pigeon came back, hopped into the nest, rummaged around a little bit and then flew off and didn't return. Now comes the big decision for me. Do I destroy the nest and plant a couple varieties of mint in the planter.... or do I wait and see if the pigeon's decide to try again. Honestly, after almost a month of watching and waiting to see the little baby pigeons hatch, grow and fly off I'm tempted to do the latter.... hmm.... what to do with the empty nest.... what to do.... (rhetorical)....