There are days at Winterpast when everything asks for your attention at once. Tuesday was one of those days.
Up in the Japanese maple, tucked into a cradle of thin, patient branches, a dove has been sitting. Two eggs beneath her. No fuss, no sound—just the quiet, stubborn work of staying. Every time we passed beneath her tree, she watched. Not curious. Not calm. Measuring. And yesterday, we gave her reason to.
HHH and I set out to wake the irrigation system. Half an acre of plastic tubing stretched across the land like a puzzle no one quite remembers solving, lines running here and doubling back there. We turned on the water and waited, and almost immediately the yard answered back.
A leak here, a split line there, and then, without warning, a full gusher—water shooting up where it had no business being. “Oy vey” became the language of the afternoon as we stepped over hoses, crouched, adjusted, shut things off, turned them on again, and tried to bring order to something that seemed determined to resist it.
Above us, she held. Longer than I expected, honestly. But even quiet strength has its limit. At some point with no signal or warning, she broke. Wings sudden against the still air, a rush of motion where there had only been stillness.
And right on cue, the resident idiots sprang into action.
Tanner and Oliver, united at last in a shared and noble cause: chaos. Charging with full conviction and no understanding of what they were doing, they barked, scattering what little peace remained in the yard. The dove veered hard, gaining sky, leaving behind the small, fragile center of her world.
And then… nothing. The nest sat empty.
It’s a strange thing, how quickly two tiny eggs can begin to matter. We didn’t say much, HHH and I, but we both kept looking up. Not constantly. Just enough to know we were both thinking the same thing. Maybe that was it. Maybe she wouldn’t come back.
Time stretched out longer than it probably was. The yard grew quieter. Even the water seemed to settle into a kind of waiting.
And then—she returned.
Not in a rush or panic. She came back the way she had left, on her own terms. One careful movement, then another, folding herself down over those two small promises as if nothing had happened… and everything had. No announcement. No correction. Just presence. Below her, life carried on in its usual, imperfect way.
Later that evening, Oliver lost his supper. Not outside, where such things belong, but directly on the rug by the back door. A consequence from something he ate earlier in the day. Whether it was his karma or ours remains open for discussion.
Up in the tree, she stays.
This morning, that feels like the only thing that matters.
If you’d like to follow along, come back tomorrow. The sprinklers aren’t finished with us yet… and I suspect neither is she.