Home sweet home...twigs, heat'n all...

My home office (my only office come to think of it) sits above the garage. To the left of the garage door, between the wall of the house and a drainpipe, sits a vacant bird's nest - up until a few weeks ago.

We're now the proud landlords of a pregnant mourning dove. Yup, she moved right in, without so much as signing a lease!

We've had other residents who've come and gone like bird thieves in the middle of the night. No one's stayed before. I don't know if Ms Betty Bird decided to move in because there were no other places to rent or the lease fell through on the condo she really wanted. With today's staggering inflation Betty's getting a pretty good deal. But...

Summer rentals here at our house do come with a high price. It's noisy--so close to the ups and downs of the garage door -- and then there's me, frequently running outside to check on Betty like a feral cat.

I'm worried about her. She's alone. No one's dropping off meals or water, and in her condition, she needs to stay well hydrated and eat.

She never leaves the nest. Who feeds her? And gives her a little respite when she's tired of egg sitting? Or when she wants a bath? Speaking of which, I put a bowl of water out there for her to cool her off but I haven't seen her use it yet.

What bothers me most is the fact that we have three small spotlights under the eaves. One of the lights shines on little Betty Bird every night. It doesn't seem to bother her, but it bothers me.

Can't you see it now? She hatches her eggs in the nest. The birds grow up and all fly the coop, so to speak. Then, two years from now the they take turns reclining on the bird psychiatrist's straw and jute couch...

"I can't sleep. My home life was pretty traumatic. When I was a baby, we lived in a noisy nest. We'd hear grinding noises, things skittering across the driveway--newspapers and magazines I think, cars, garbage and mail trucks rumbling by, the land lady running out at all hours scaring the worms right out of us. It was like we were being tortured. The worst part was that it stayed light until midnight and then before you knew it, the sun came up. We were just exhausted all time. I think we're all suffering from PTSD."

Bird Psychiatrist takes the pencil out of his beak and jots a few notes.

"And the landlords were very odd looking birds--no feathers, very fleshy, must have had some molting problem--were no help at all. They gave us a dish pool but the darn thing nearly boiled our mother one hot July day when the sun shifted and heated it up. It was awful."

Then the astute psychiatrist would tell them to eat more worms and move to the countryside ...

Anyway, last night when we got home from walking Jake in the 100 degree heat at 8:30 p.m., and still bothered by Betty's plight, I said to my husband, "I wonder if we should change the timer so the lights goes --" when I heard a "pop." The light, well, all the lights in the neighborhood for that matter, went out! Now how's that for a direct link to the Powers that Be?

Not bad, huh?

So Betty stayed cool last night, had a restful sleep in the dark, and this morning when I went out to say hello, she looked pretty chipper. Now, if she'd just take a little dip in the above ground pool in the evening, I'd feel a lot better.