This past week, apparently, without any of us in Green Acres Permaculture Village realizing it, right across from the Overhill kitchen window a mourning dove was building her nest. Then, one day Annie slammed the door when going out of the DeKist house, and was startled by a dove that flew off in front of her, leaving these eggs in her wake!

Right on top of a rake. Luckily, we are hardly using these tools right now, since it’s planting season, and we’re mostly on our hands and knees in the garden beds. Like this morning, planting cabbages.

This afternoon son Colin zeroed in on her, respectfully, from a distance, and then enlarged this section of the photo.

From what I read, the eggs will hatch in ten or twelve days.

https://www.wild-bird-watching.com/Doves.html

One more note: I didn’t realize, until now, that humans call this bird a “mourning dove” (not a morning dove). Which makes the fact that when I was a baby confined to my crib, I can distinctly remember hearing these doves call at dawn. In a very real sense, my own lifetime began in mourning, since I was a World War II baby and my Dad had left for the war. Even now, 79 years later, hearing the call of the dove puts me right back there, in the crib, senses awakening to what was outside.

The dove’s call calmed me, made me feel safe in the world.

The contradiction between the calming effect of the dove’s call and the horrific suffering and worry that wartime brings could not be more startling.

79 years later, and what has changed? Has anything changed? Is the dove on the rake just outside telling us something?

Is she telling us what she told me, as a baby, “Don’t worry, everything will be okay?”

And NOW, she adds: “Just keep working together with your Mother Earth!”

Yes, that’s the message. At least to me, in this era of deep, geopolitical and cultural disturbance.

Oops!

Pray that Tiger cat doesn’t find her first. (There’s absolutely no way this cat will tolerate being inside while the dove is on the nest.)