Lonesome Dove

 “I see you’re in a hurry to get someplace. It’s a great mistake to hurry.” “Why?” Joe asked, puzzled by almost everything the traveler said. “Because the grave’s our destination,” Mr. Sedgwick said. “Those who hurry usually get to it quicker than those who take their time.”

― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry, is one of my favorite books and movies.  The characters are something to behold!  Not to mention, the scenery and music is stunning.  I'll watch it ever so often and catch myself repeating some of the lines.  

Tonight's post isn't about the movie, Lonesome Dove, but about a lonesome dove I found in our garage.  Two days ago I had gathered eggs.  We have a table in the garage with empty egg cartons.  I take the eggs I collected, brush them with a luffa and pack them in egg cartons and put them in the outdoor fridge.  As I was mindlessly doing this task, something startled me.  A rustling sound coming from behind the cartons...

It moved!  I grabbed the critter and found it was a dove.  Not a mourning dove or a ring-neck dove, but a small dove.  People around here call them Mexican doves.  I also see them called Inca doves, although I don't know if that's the same bird or not.  They tend to show up each evening around feeding time for the chickens.  When I throw the scratch grains out, the little doves fly in to enjoy a little "government cheese."

This little guy was scared.  If I was a betting man, I'd bet you that it was attacked by our cat, Ginger and somehow escaped with its life.  Although it was beat up, it was still alive.  I whisked him out of the garage surreptitiously so as not to alert Ginger to the whereabouts of the dove.  I assured the little dove that he was safe with me.

I gently placed the dove on the trampoline and stepped back to allow it to fly away.  It sat there, hunched over.  

I glanced around to keep a watchful eye for Ginger.  I walked around to see if I could find her, but I think she had gone into the house for a bit.  Good.  I went back to the trampoline only to find the little dove was gone!  I hope it regained its strength and gathered its wits and flew off.

The dove got me to thinking about dove hunting.  It's been a while since I've been dove hunting.  As a young man in high school, we would do a lot of mourning dove hunting.  Mourning doves have a distinctive, mournful cry from which they get their name.  Just south of our town, I had a friend whose dad owned a concrete business and his house was just east of that.  Right past his house a little ways, the gravel road turns back south and if you follow it around, it will take you right near the Kinder Canal.  That canal carries water pumped from the Calcasieu River to be used to irrigate rice fields.

At the point that Mayfield Road runs parallel to the Kinder Canal, was a prime spot for hunting doves back then.  We'd load up our hunting vests with 12 gauge shells and shoot doves until we had our limit and our vests were full.  The smell of gunpowder and freshly killed doves are two scents I can distinctly remember.  We would pluck the feathers off the doves and clean them.  Plump little dove breasts ready for cooking.

Once we had a 'mess' of them, we'd cook.  One particular time I remember, we'd added a little oil to the bottom of a pot and browned the doves and then removed them.  We'd then added flour while stirring until the roux was chocolate brown.  Of course we were cooking a big dove gumbo.  It smelled delicious!

My great Aunt Myra was visiting from South Dakota at the time.  She and my parents walked in the back door and the delicious aroma met them at the door.  My aunt Myra asked, "What are you cooking?"  "Dove gumbo," I responded.  Aunt Myra began to cry!  I didn't understand.  I was later told that she sat on the Save the Dove Committee up in South Dakota.  I remember my Dad having to try to clean up that mess for me, telling her that doves were as numerous as sands on the seashore down here and they didn't need saving in Louisiana.  I don't think we were ever able to get her to eat a bowl of dove gumbo.  If you've never eaten dove gumbo, you're missing out.