Perpetual Ruminations

Saturday

I can't believe how tired I am, even after taking a nap this afternoon. And, it's not because of not getting much sleep this week; I actually did pretty good at getting to bed early and sleeping well. I was up quite a bit Wednesday night, but I had went to bed on time and slept pretty hard. I didn't nap at all on Thursday, which had me in bed by nine and I slept most of the night, only waking up once or twice. Again, I slept hard, and I woke up right before the alarm this morning. It will be early to bed again tonight, and since I don't have to get up at an ungodly hour tomorrow, I should be back on track.

I do still have a bit of a task before I can retire for the night, then it's a little television, a bowl of ice cream, and off to bed. But before any of that, I have to set up the dog kennel for a dove. After work, I took the dogs out and noticed a dove on the ground right close to Hannah. It didn't move, and luckily, she didn't see it. I put both dogs in the house and went to investigate.

The poor thing was soaked, and unable to fly, but it did walk away when I got close to it. It didn't move fast, but it seemed to move alright, no limp or wing dragging.  But, I was close enough to reach down and pick it up before it moved, and it only went a few feet and stopped again.

I knew it wouldn't survive the night; if one of our dogs didn't get it, someones cat would. Also the neighbors dogs always come into our yard. If animals didn't finish it off, I figured it would freeze to death on the ground, being so wet and windy out. So, I went to the shed and found a hamster cage we had stored out there, and the net for the pond. It took a while to get everything, put the cage back together, and then go look and see if the dove was still around.

I was hoping it would have recovered enough to get to shelter, maybe even fly up a bit into one of the pine trees. But no such luck, the poor thing was still right were I left it. It was not trouble at all to slip the net over it, and it didn't' even put up any resistance when I took it out of the net and placed it in the cage.

It did well in the cage, and by the time Rhonda got home it was perked up and making quite a mess anytime we got close, but it still can't fly. I'm not sure why, it doesn't seem to have any damage to either wing, and we are hoping it makes a full recovery by tomorrow. but, the hamster cage is just too small for the dove, so we are going to transfer it over to the kennel. It will have a lot of room, and we can put a perch in for it to roost on, if it can get up on it.

With some food and water, and a good rest, hopefully it will be roosting by morning, and we can return it to the outdoors where it belongs. I figure if it is able to get onto a roost, it can get up into the pine trees and get shelter. If it isn't, we will have to decide what more we can do for it.