Speaking of feathers, eggs and spring-time....I beginning to think my husband's new name for me might just be right! I'm just your average, everyday Ellie-May Clampett! Although we do not live out in the "boonies" by any means we are surrounded by wildlife it seems! We have a horse farm behind us....gotta love those smells when I turn on the a/c in my van, ewwwwww...we also have a pack of coyotes that roam the woods behind our house. I had the good fortune of hearing from their latest catch Tuesday night....ewwwwwww again, poor little Peter Rabbit! And the latest is the ongoing saga of the "mother-dove" on my front porch. About two months ago we had one make a nest in a holly bush in front of our porch. Now mind you I can see how the birds might confuse our house with the trees because we have 3-story and it feels at times we are on a mountaintop, especially if it's storming. Nonetheless....once the 3 babies were ripe she flew the coop and so did they. Well, now about 3 weeks ago I felt the amazing urge to clean my front porch and get all my winter-worn flower pots ready for some new flowers. And much to my surprise ( I actually screamed!) there's a new mama-dove in a pot in one of my planters. This of course has ignited a fire of new interest in my children for birds, eggs (ornothology, I think is what it's called...I'm just the teacher, what do I know LOL). But today as we checked on her we noticed one of the eggs on the porch and it was cracked, but there was a bird in there. And just now when I checked again that egg was moving! So I did the only thing any good Mama would do.....with a piece of paper I scooped it up and put it back in it's nest with it's sibling. I know that goes against everything we've always heard about leaving nature alone b/c the mama may abandon it. Well, at this point I'm the only hope that baby's got b/c mother dove "ain't gonna be scooping that baby up anytime soon :o) We will see what happens. I do know the bird is alive because it was moving around. That is a good sign. And of course while all this drama was unfolding the neighbor kids just happened to be here, so now they're in on the excitement too. My friends always said I was a baby magnet......