You are right, I haven’t been blogging like I should be, and I apologize.  Big things are happening in my household, most notably, the expansion of the veterinary practice that my wife and I own.  She is the veterinarian (a dang good one), and I manage the business and technical side of things.  At Home Veterinary Services is a mobile vet practice serving the Portland, Oregon metro area.  My wife, Dr. Louise Mesher, DVM travels to homes around the metro area providing veterinary care for people who have multiple pets, pets who don’t like getting into the car to go to the vet (dogs always know), cats that don’t like getting in carriers, pets with mobility issues, geriatric pets, etc.

We’ve been operating the practice part time since 2008, but now that our wonderful daughter is starting school, we are ratcheting up the business toward full time.  It’s very exciting!

If you follow my blog or follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ve seen quite a few images from Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge.  I keep going back over and over because it’s such a great place, and it has a car route, so my 3 year old can come along easily and enjoy the sights too.

On the right, you’ll see a tree swallow taken at Ridgefield.  The photograph was taken on a day where I just went out for a couple of hours with my daughter.  We drove to the refuge before a business meeting I had scheduled for later in the morning.  These kinds of outings go along with my belief that you can always find time to take a few photographs, and in this case, enjoy some quality time with my 3 year old daughter and continue to introduce her into the beauty of nature and animals.

We hit a couple trails that are now open for summer, and we had a wonderful time on a wonderfully sunny morning.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

Back to At Home Veterinary Services for a moment.  I’ll probably be a little scarce on my blog and online because we have a lot to do and prepare for the practice.  I’ll still find time to photograph, but I probably won’t be writing very often for the next few weeks.

I know that I’ll find some time though, so for all of my millions of fans…er, whoever might come across my ramblings, fear not, there is more to come!

My daughter and I went to Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge yesterday.  We have been battling the mother of all cold viruses in this house for about 2 weeks, but we went out.  We did have a good time, in between hacking our lungs up and blowing our noses.  Of course, a day later and she seems to be feeling better, and I am feeling worse.  My wife has been fighting it too, and we are all pretty tired and cranky.

Luckily, we saw some birds yesterday.  My favorite photograph is the one show here of a Common Yellowthroat Warbler which I photographed while we were walking a nice trail in the refuge.

We could have very easily have stayed home, but we didn’t.  Maybe we should have stayed home.  But it was sunny and inching toward 70 degrees, and everyone had been inside for so long.  It was time to get out.

I don’t recommend everyone heading out when your sick.   I know I wasn’t paying attention to my settings as I should have been, so I had some photographs that weren’t looking all that good when I imported them into Photoshop.  Ah, well.  It really wasn’t a day about photography, and I think having some of those days isn’t a bad thing.  Just have some fun and don’t worry about the rest of it.

It was an interesting two weeks in Newfoundland.  Our reason for going this time of year was to visit family, and we were able to spend quite a bit of time with them.  The weather was mostly cloudy, rainy with some snow here and there.  The temps for the most part hovered right around freezing.  There were two days where the sun came out, which made for some nice sunrises.

My road trips to scout and look for photographs were around the St. John’s area and other parts of the Avalon peninsula.  Given the weather, I was pretty happy with the images I came away with.

The first decent day I when scene hunting I found my way to a shipwreck in Conception Harbour.  It is an often photographed subject in the area, and I can understand why: It stands out.  The day I was there was cloudy, but there was a nice texture in the sky.  I converted the photograph to black & white, which I think worked well here.

There are certainly scenes that I come across that I’m thinking in terms of black & white, and this was one of them.  The color photograph was interesting, but in black and white, there is a feeling of going back in time, or at least age.  This ship is actually thought to be one of the last whaling ships that used to be docked here, which gives it an even more ominous history.

As the days in Newfoundland went on, I continued looking for subjects to photograph regardless of the weather.  One of the subjects I found over and over were birds.  While spring really had not come to the island yet (at least spring as we know it here in western Oregon) there were some birds at local ponds.  My daughter had a great time when she was with me looking at all the birds.  They are very acclimated to humans, so getting close to them was very easy for me and my daughter, which she absolutely loved.

Mallards, black ducks and northern pintails were the most common birds, along with pigeons in the city parks.  While it wasn’t much of a challenge to get close to these birds, it was enjoyable and I came away with some nice photographs of the very nice looking birds.

The weather showed promise on April 23rd, so I was out before sunrise to see what I could catch.  The theme my photography seemed to take on this trip was coastal and marine living: fishing villages, boats, harbours and similar subjects.  This morning would be no exception as I headed for Petty Harbour, Newfoundland near St. John’s.  Although I had hoped for a few more clouds in the sky, the sunrise was lovely, and it was the first morning without rain since we had been there.  In fact, just two days before several inches of snow fell in a honest-to-God blizzard that swept through.  The snow was gone by the end of the next day, but it was still quite cold, especially on this morning with no cloud cover.

Some of the other photographs I took during my visit continued to follow this theme.  The photograph you see with the blue building built along a cliff over the water was taking at Quidi Vidi village, but the day I enjoyed the most occurred on the last full day I was in Newfoundland.  All the weather reports pointed to another morning where the sunrise might be a good one, so I headed out in the dark again to hopefully find some new images.

The day before I had taken a drive to Pouch Cove, Newfoundland, north of St. John’s.  Using a great took called The Photographers Ephemeris I was able to determine along what line the sun would be rising.  It appeared that Pouch Cove’s location along the coast would be a pretty good area for the sunrise.

I wasn’t disappointed.  The light was wonderful and there were some nice clouds in the sky.  It is an area I will certainly visit again on subsequent trips to this very interesting island and province.

I’m not sure words can adequately describe some of the feelings I have when I visit Newfoundland.  Not only is it the home of my wife, but the history here is truly amazing.  Vikings were here in at L’Anse aux Meadows in 1002 AD, more than 400 years before Columbus arrived and met the indigenous peoples.  The earliest explorers after Columbus were here.  As far as North America is concerned, St. John’s is considered the oldest European founded city having been considered to be established in 1497, a mere 5 years after Columbus had sailed.

Every time I visit I get wrapped up in the history.