War and Peace

We had a strange morning. While I was getting breakfast this morning Sky found a little doggy toy that had somehow escaped their notice until now. It was a small orange teddy bear that I bought when the pups were little. Because of the size, the pups were able to carry it around and would fall asleep on it and I had put it somewhere safe until today.


Sky declared war on this poor little bear and after pulling most of the stuffing out of it, (it's always amazing to me how much stuffing the Chinese can cram into one of these toys) he proudly presented it to me in this condition. Oh well, it was a dog toy after all.

Our dining room looks out on our porch and side deck and we enjoy watching the birds at the feeders in the morning as we have breakfast. We get a lot of Goldfinches and Cardinals and our regular cleanup crew of Mourning Doves who pick up the seed the other birds drop.

This morning as we enjoyed our second cups of coffee, we were both startled to see a very large white dove strut along the deck railing and look in the window at us.



She was almost twice the size of the Mourning Doves and pure white. I have never seen one in the wild before. The only white doves I've seen were domestic birds kept as pets.


She spent quite a bit of time on the deck, then flew off, but returned so that I could take pictures. While she was gone Rob put some seed out for her and when she returned she seemed pleased to have some lunch.


We don't know where she came from or if we'll ever see her again, but she was a very pleasant visitor this morning.

One of the first pieces of art that Rob and I bought after we were married was a stained glass dove.

This is a large piece that hung in our living room in Maryland and will probably wind up in the new library in this house.


I gave this cloth sculpture dove to Rob for Christmas one year and it will hang in the guest room soon. White doves are special to us and seeing a live one at our own home today brightened the whole day for us.