Birds. We live in a rare spot and the birds and trees and other wildlife are calming, interesting, sometimes unsettling, weather patterns being what they are.

But a flock of wild parrots might fly into the yard or a seemingly day-to-day migration of doves lands on a pine tree in the morning in droves and similarly lands again, as if it’s a stopping point on their way home in the late afternoon. It always makes me feel as if there’s some order. And that the care we’ve taken to plant in some cases indigenous plants or tropicals which attract varying species of birds, including a variety of hummingbirds and bees, gives me a kind of calm, pride, and similarly gratitude that we’ve been able to create a tiny protected space that may have value for time to come.

I took a picture this weekend of our Chinese Elm as the leaves were turning and everyone teases us in L.A. that we have no seasons….

And as I hit the shutter a deer jumped into frame…. It was a little bit magical.