2500 and Counting

.....just counting a little slowly.  

Apparently this is my 2500th blip over the course of 8+ years, having joined Blipfoto in February, 2014.  

I will eternally be grateful for the friends I have made here both virtually and in real life. Blipfoto has so enriched my life and pushed my photography skills further by viewing the inspirational photos I see here. 

This is such a lovely place to belong, and I am very grateful to the fabulous administrators who work in the background and have kept this the wonderful place that it is.  Thanks to all of you who stop by my journal and leave such lovely comments of encouragement.  You are all so very special.  Life is a bit busier than it was when I first retired, and I do miss some days, but I never stay away very long. 

We made a trip this morning to the Mississippi Sand Crane National Wildlife Refuge, only a few miles from here.  The Mississippi Sandhill Cranes are an endangered sub species and the refuge is one of the largest tracts of wet pine savannah left in the U.S, favored by the cranes.  I didn't expect to see any sandhill cranes as the population is only about 135 and the refuge is many,  many acres, but it was a still a lovely but hot morning of many wildflowers and insects.