Day 295

Autumn Blush

Matthew took this on our way home from school the other day.  The leaves are reaching their peak of beauty.

I am standing down at the bottom of the driveway where I have rushed,carrying a towel and swimsuit, after being phoned by Nick in a mad hurry as usual to get to work, and having forgotten his swimsuit (actually the third time I am rescuing him in as many days, good grief, you would swear he was actually in 4th grade, not the 12th!).  The maples lining the drive are pretty, all yellows and mustards and pinks and browns.  Suddenly, a big roaring wind comes out of nowhere and surges through the trees, ripping off leaves that rain down in their thousands.  I wish I had my camera, which I had actually thought about on my way down but not gone back for.  So I just enjoy the show, as leaves pour down, flickering at my face and hands.  The door opposite opens and the old lady who lives there, who I love, comes out and exclaims, making wide excited happy gestures with her hands, wondering at this sudden squall.  She carefully crosses the road, although in her usual sprightly way, and tells me, smiling broadly, "I looked out of the window and saw you there with your hair the color of fall and the leaves coming down all around you, what a lovely sight!" 

Early in the day I watch three doves jostling to bathe in the birdbath, which is actually full of pine needles floating on the water, but they don't seem to mind.  There is obviously a pecking order, and the biggest, fattest one waddles in first.  She has a good wash, lifting and stretching first one wing, then the next, dipping and rolling her head under the water in a swift fluid movement, over and over, and finally, waddling back out on to the wooden railing to preen herself. 

There are two left strolling around the perimeter of the bath, deciding who will go in second.  Eventually the littlest one makes a move, gingerly steps in with one foot but quickly pulls it back out when the other one rushes around to peck at her.  The bully then steps in and repeats all the moves of the first dove, and by the time the last one can enter the water, the first two have left the area, and she does a kind of hurried leap and flutter, and then flies off to join her tormentors.

Do you feel sorry for the littlest one?  Yes.  She is the underdove.

I am gmail chatting with my daughter in South Africa because the phone connections are so bad that we can barely hear one another and the conversation is spent asking "What?" so many times that after a bit you just say, "Oh really?" and other helpful interjections as you strive to grasp the gist of what the other person is saying.  So it is super-frustrating.  Gmail chat is marvellous, because we can both type super-fast.

Here is a funny example of our communication yesterday:

 me:  A dove just banged into the window in front of me and managed to fly off, I don't know how, and is now sitting on top of the roof looking rather dazed.  I got such a fright, I hope it's alright

 Jesse:  oh shame

poor thing

 me:  I wonder if the plants trick them, because we brought in all the plants last night, as the first frost is expected tonight, and maybe they can see them through the window and think they will just land on them, and maybe they are familiar to them because they were just outside next to the birdbath and so they all sat in them over the summer.

 Jesse:  stupid owl was sitting on the electricity pole again last night right outside our window- it doesn't give a shit about me anymore which I guess is sort of a privilege but also a curse as I walked out onto the balcony at four in the morning livid! expecting it to fly away and it just sat there

I waved my arms, yelled, cursed and it just sat there and went hoo hoo

 me:  ha haha!

 Jesse:  then finally after I had stopped waving about and just about thrown my own self off the balcony in despair it flew off

 me:  Jess, YOU need to write a book

 Jesse:  silently

She has these amazing great horned owls where she lives, which most people would utterly love, but for months now every night, just about, the owls have sat on their roof which is about 4 feet above their bed, or on the electricity pole, and hooted loudly at odd times, which is very jarring, not like the white noise of traffic, for example, that you can fall asleep to.  

When Jess was a teenager we had these fowls that decided, for some reason known only to their little poultry brains, that they would leave their owners, our neighbours, and move in with us.  They were bantams, and the little rooster was a fierce defender of his wife and children, and a loving father and husband, finding titbits for them to eat and doing all this while looking very beautiful in all his cockerel finery.  

But the place they decided on as a safe haven for their roosting spot each night was directly below Jessica's window, in the creeper over the carport.  And many times, as anyone who has owned a rooster knows, they do not crow at the break of day, but long before it, which served, of course, to drive Jess, an insomniac, completely batty!  She threatened to kill him many nights, and then forgave him during the day, because he was really a dear.  

One wild and stormy night I went out to check on our dog Skye, who slept outside in a kennel under the carport, and  she was very happy when I brought her into the kitchen to sleep because there was thunder and lightning and I felt sorry for her.  Then I wondered how the poor little drenched bantams were faring, and how I could rescue them, but when I peered up there with a torch, there they were, safe and sound and dry, as Jess had flung out a raincoat over their part of the creeper to keep them dry.  

Raining leaves.