It's Dove Day

I looked out the patio doors to see a flock of eight mourning doves waddling around in the melting snow pecking at fallen corn and seeds.  Naturally five of them flew the coop by the time I got the camera up and running but I love the way the remaining three are all facing outward as if they can't bear to watch anyone else eat.  I think doves are so funny.  They spook for no apparent reason and you should see their nests.  We had a window box outside the kitchen window of our old house (I miss that window box) and one spring a mama dove decided that's where she was going to make her nest.  She flew up with a beak full of twigs and dead grass, proceeded to basically spit them out, ptooi, waggle her tail into the center of the small pile and lay three little white eggs on what was essentially bare ground.  She sat on them for a week or so, they hatched, she fed them for another week, and then wandered off leaving the perplexed babies perched on the edge of the planter.  Within a few hours they had all gotten the hint that Mom wasn't coming back with more grub so they flapped their wings and went on their merry way.  I love doves.  I think they're the trailer trash of the bird world.


I got the initial decreases done on the crown of the Soup Hat last night.  Next comes the real, serious decreasing which I hope to get done today so I have something to show off at Guild tonight.  I'll hurry through the work waiting for me on my desk and maybe, just maybe, I'll get done before the meeting.


Look at what Avocado Pit #1 is doing.  It's growing two tall sprouts, leaving the smaller one to languish.  I can't tell if that little one on the far left is still growing or if the other two are hogging the nutrients.  Only time, and a ruler, will tell.

January 19--Crow High-Top Moccasins.  Len awoke on a single breath.  It was dark, the fire burned to embers.  What had he heard?  It came again, the soft scuff of a leather sole on the dusty flagstone step of the cabin.  It wasn't his cabin, he didn't know who it belonged to but he'd been very glad to see it nestled in the trees at the edge of the clearing.  From his days as a Boy Scout he knew to go downhill when he got lost and follow water to a river and a river to a road.  Instead of a river, the stream he followed led him to the clearing and this cabin.  It had been open, a fire laid in the hearth, so he'd lit the fire, hung his clothes on chairs to dry, and rolled up in a spare blanket to sleep on the floor in front of the fire.

We're having very odd weather.  It's warmish so the snow and ice are making mist in the air so it looks dreary enough to generate depression out there.  If I had red boots or red winter shoes I'd have them on today.  Off to work, perchance to knit.
--Barbara