Mommy will they be food?

This spring a mourning dove couple decided one of our hanging plants would be a perfect place to raise their young.  They didn’t really seem to care that I was trialing green beans in that basket.  They did care when I watered it every morning.  After flushing them several times I dragged the ladder from the garage to the backyard and discovered two tiny eggs in a hastily prepared “nest” that was tucked in the hanging basket. 

 It was rather exciting and an incredible learning experience for Pumpkin Pie & Peanut.  We discovered that both male and female share egg sitting duties while the other fly’s away to find food.  We learned how long the incubation process would take.  We found out that they are called mourning doves because their call is so mournful.  We studied their diet and bought seed they liked.  There were many questions and of course the inevitable one about “food.”  See, in our area the first day of dove season is quite noisy.  The first few years here we would forget it was September 1^st and think “was that a gunshot?”  Now I’m quite accustomed to it.  We discussed that, yes, indeed dove hunting is very popular in our area.  She asked me if I’d eaten one.  Yes, I told her, though it is not my favorite game bird to eat.  I prefer quail and turkey.  It was a good opportunity to discuss population conservation but I saved this topic for another day.  They are gone now.  It was fun to watch them trying their baby wings and learning to forage with their parents, each parent taking a baby.  Now I know why it is called empty nest.

Spring is bursting our here at our urban farm.  All the sweet potato slips survived transplantation.  The asparagus is ferny and lovely and we are still getting new shoots coming up.  They are quite thin, about like yarn.  I’ll be curious to see if they are even edible next year.  We also have a variety of potatoes planted in 5 towers and 2 whiskey barrels.   I am anticipating it will be a challenge to keep everything watered this year, it always is in the desert.  Though I will not be traveling as much this summer as last.  I will also be giving detailed instructions, perhaps with a diagram, on what is to be watered so all my hard work isn’t burnt up in an afternoon.

Though none of these things were planted from seeds (by us) it still got Peanut thinking about seeds.  Now, her and her sister have planted countless seeds in the yard; unpopped popcorn kernels, uneaten seeds from watermelon, tomato, and cucumbers.  But it seemed to have just hit Peanut this morning that this tiny seed has all the information needed to grow a plant or a tree.  Just add sunlight and water.  I think she definitely has the gardening bug which is one of the primary reasons for gardening with them.  I don’t know how many six year olds can go out to the herb garden and return with the herb mom asked her to pick.

Some of these life lessons come with hard questions and even unanswered questions.  Some of them may have an unhappy ending.  (I’ll be thinking of our dove family when I hear the first shots fired in a few months.)  But life is like that.  I don’t want to shield my kids from the realities of life and death.  I want to teach them, nurture them, love them while we’re here.  

Update: We were such good hosts we apparently have another dove family utilizing our hanging basket nursery.