For two weeks at dawn I was rousted out of a deep sleep by the loud plaintive call of a mourning dove.  Jon might be able to sleep through an alien invasion of Earth but I am more of a delicate flower.  Giving up, I would stumble over to the window and raise the blind as fast as I could , intending to flush the perpetrator.  And every morning the dove would fly away in a panic and I, unable to get back to sleep, would lie there and invent dove pie recipes like Farley Mowat and his "souris a la creme."  

But mourning doves have no long-term memories, I concluded, because the blasted creature would be back the next day.

Until...
the morning when there was no dove. 

Instead there was a nest.  Resting mainly on the stone ledge, it overflowed onto the old eunonymus vine which Jon trimmed to the same height. 

.....the guilt...... 

Once again, I had harassed an expectant mother.

It wasn't much of a nest but the intent was clear.  They (for indeed there were two, identical and thoroughly married) had been setting up their nursery and, sure enough, the next day someone was sitting on the first egg -- small and white, but already valued beyond price. 

Since that day (April 9th) I have been quietly appearing in the window, scratching and yawning (see 8/8/16 in the archive) and we have established a workable menage a trois,  though I wish they wouldn't call me "The Huge, Hulking but Harmless Horror."  Camera at the ready and angled awkwardly, I skulk.  Mourning doves are even more beautiful than I had thought.  Of particular note are the pale turquoise eye rings. 

Thus we co-exist and at least for now dawns are quiet.  I am under no illusion that this will last.  Baby birds have huge mouths from which utter competitive and piercing cries.  In the meantime, a palette knife series is underway.  This one is tentatively #2.  The opening bars of this opus will invoke one scrawny but serviceable nest that accomplishes no more than the basics.  The Taj Mahal it ain't but these two are parental royalty already.

How are the following two sentences related?

1.  Theodore has been with us for almost a year and a half.
2.  I own three cameras and 2 iPads.

Now ask me if I have succeeded so far in getting even one single picture of Theodore facing a camera, ears perked, and with two visible eyes.

Now that you ask, no.
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Most dogs do not throw up roadblocks to being immortalized.  Sure, we occasionally pose them in profile like this one of Woody.  But it is obvious that  his elegant profile, not a missing eye, drove the pose.
Most dogs in fact love to be photographed.  Simply uttering the phrase “Good boy!!”  with conviction normally evokes an easy straight-on glamour shot. 

Even Nikki, Bill’s rescued tiger, managed a half smile for the camera. (Why wouldn't he?  Nikki ate better than we did.)

And eyes are truly the windows to the soul:  their transparencies, subtle coloration and reflected lights enchant us.  As a painter, I put a lot of attention into eyes. More than one marriage has been posited on a pair of blue ones.
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Theodore’s little portrait is unfinished, just into its blue layer, but its very existence proves that I have admitted defeat. One eye is the best I’m going to do.   

​Three out of four isn’t bad.

I rather like spring raking, if only because it feels like scratching the back of an enormous slumbering bear.  I always assumed that emerging from hibernation must be a challenge and a post on this week’s weather channel proved it.  A live-cam feed shows such a bear, whose head alone protrudes from a large tree, struggling mightily to open his eyes but with little success.  The prospect of an affectionate back scratch would surely be just the thing to ease the transition.

But this weekend found the bear having succumbed to those heavy eyes!  Rain had turned to snow and while the land slumbered there was nothing to do but play on top of it.  Theodore was beside himself with glee, snowplowing, rolling,  shaking and galloping.  We broke trail through the maple forest and while Jon’s and my paths were reasonably straight,  Theodore’s wove left and right like that of a cheerful drunk.  Remember that our little guy’s legs are barely 6 inches (I’m being generous) — about the same depth as the snow on Saturday.    Sometimes he had to fall behind to chew off the snowballs building on his low undercarriage, only to reappear over a hill in a frenzy of catch-up haste.

It took me about twenty minutes to carefully tease off the ten pounds of iceballs on Theodore’s nether regions.   To tell you the truth we were both pretty nervous, given the delicate location.  But it did prove that Theodore may not be as dim as we had feared, because on Day 2 he contentedly trotted behind us like a  prince, deigning to let our feet do the road work and keeping his own powder dry, so to speak.   

Skye terriers may not be built for snowy cross-country hikes but their excess of personality more than compensates for a body designed by a fractious committee.  When we finish laughing, Jon and I remind ourselves at times like this that our pack will always be enriched by a wee lassie like Jewell or a wee laddie like Theodore.  Skye terriers are literally a vanishing breed, like bears in suburban forests.

Both are irreplacable.