It’s time for “Round 3.”

That’s right — those crazy, love struck doves are back in my potted plant incubating their third set of two eggs right there on our front porch.

I must admit that I’m quite surprised that they have decided my spider plant is the best place in Belmont to raise a family. When they first nested there, I did a little research and learned that they sometimes do return to a nest where they had success. So, after the first two babies disappeared rather quickly, I wasn’t stunned to see the parents come back a few days later.

That second set of chicks stuck around much longer. In fact, one of them looked almost like a full-grown adult by the time it left.

It’s sibling seemed smaller and more immature even though I’m pretty sure they hatched on the same day. It almost seemed like the larger of the two was hanging on to ensure the “runt” got off to a good start in life.

During the first week of August, Mike and I took a few vacation days. Spending a lot of time around the house, we discovered that the smaller baby dove had only made it to the yard and did not yet seem inclined to fly.

We watched, and it wandered in and out of the flower beds along the edge of the yard for a couple of days.

I am happy to report that it did finally disappear, with no signs of a struggle found.

By the end of that week, though, the procreators were back at it, settling back down into their swinging nest.

This time I was quite surprised. I knew that doves could lay eggs up to six times in a year, but I never imagined that they would choose to do so three times on my porch!

I’ll let you know how this pair of kids turns out and if the persistent parents come back for “Round 4.”

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The primary plan for our vacation was to finish a project we started last fall. We did not achieve that, but we made significant progress.

A year ago, the two center posts that held up our front porch roof were leaning — enough to create a gap beneath one of them that was probably an inch thick. That worried us, since we didn’t want the roof to sag or pull loose from the wall.

We are DIYers, but fixing that problem was a little beyond our abilities. So, we hired Norris Construction out of Centerville to do the heavy lifting and structural repair.

They propped up the roof, removed all four 120-year-old posts and install new, 6×6 timbers that they set in the ground in concrete. Those posts aren’t going anywhere now!

Meanwhile, we wanted to retain the original look of our porch. So, Brady Norris and his company built us a new floor and the framework we needed and then left it to us to finish the facade. They did exactly what we asked, and we couldn’t be happier with their work.

Our own efforts, though, have been slower. We have had to figure things out along the way.

But we did just that during our vacation, buying 16-foot-long banister boards, devising a way to make notches for those new posts and getting them to fit almost perfectly. We primed and painted them, and waited for them to dry. We sawed and hammered and scraped and carried, but we just couldn’t quite complete the job in one week.

So, we will keep plugging away, much like our residents doves keep returning to the nst and waiting for their babies to arrive.

I guess I know what I have to look forward to for my next vacation.