Lonesome Dove? Not These Two. They're not Lonesome at all

One of my favorite books/movies is Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove."  The scenery is great.  The music is great.  The dialogue is great.  In fact, I think it's high time I set aside a little time and watch it again.  Lonesome Dove is the name of a small border town in Texas where Gus and Woodrow run the Hat Creek Cattle Company.

Here's the thing.  We have doves around here on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  They are pretty birds and they are very clever.  They wait for when we throw chicken scratch to the hens and they swoop down and eat alongside the hens.  Most mornings and afternoons we can see them, flying in.  Like me, they're never gonna turn down a free meal.

Yesterday I was walking out by the garden just to check on things.  I am waging a war with squirrels right now.  They have developed a bad habit of digging in the garden, digging up freshly planted beans, for instance.  I told Tricia that I was going to shoot them, skin them and we'd cook them.  When I walked outside to hunt them, they were no where to be found!

Anyway, while walking out to the garden, we have an old backboard from a basketball goal that I keep around.  It has been used for numerous other things after its primary basketball life was over.  I looked and observed a lot of bird poop on it like a bird had been roosting directly above it.

I looked directly above it.  I was only partially right.  Actually TWO Mexican doves were roosting above it in the water oak tree.  Can you see them cuddled up on the branch like a couple of love birds?  They might have migrated over from Hat Creek Cattle Company in Lonesome Dove, except they aren't lonesome!

Did you know that doves mate for life?  That is kind of an endearing thing to think about.  Now, each afternoon I walk out, look up, and the two doves are in their regular spot.  It makes me think that despite the chaotic world we live in, at least with the doves (a symbol of peace), things are still good, loving and true - creatures of habit, like the couple sitting in the same church pew Sunday after Sunday, year after year.  Faith, hope and love.  And the greatest of these is LOVE.