A snow white dove

7/18/11 Monday
This is a morning of deep prayer and thought, as I seek the Lord regarding a church matter. Praying and working with a hoe to get weeds go together well. During that time I have the constant lessons taught by our dog, buddy, as he illustrates once again our relationship with God and His tolerance when we get in the way.

Once again our white dove is here. I went out to get a picture and couldn’t find it so took some pictures of our corn and cantaloupe. When I came back in the dove was in the veranda, looking around for food I suppose. There is no fear in this dove, unusual to say the least. I reached out slowly and almost petted it, but didn’t because of my uncertainty of how it would react. So I went to the garage to get some of the old seeds we’ve had for years now, so they probably aren’t any good, to feed the dove with. The dove followed me out to the garage, almost like the dogs follow me around. When I poured seed out on the ground it walked right over and began to eat, despite my being right there, only inches away. Buddy seems curiously unaffected by this birds presence, not at all inclined to chase it. Rascal spends his days chasing birds so we kept him in the house. However earlier, when the dove was at their pool, all three of them walked past it, oblivious to the birds presence. Last I checked it was in the garage eating mustard seeds I put out.
Here's the dove following me to the garage.

The last batch of corn is doing better than all the corn before it. I took my time and planted each seed more carefully, a time consuming task but the evidence is in that it pays off. Before I had scratched a groove with the hoe, dropped seeds in, and covered them up. This time I pressed each seed into the moist soil of the groove before covering it up and patting the dirt down tight.

The Tuscan cantaloupe we have is far outperforming all the other types we’ve planted. Most of it was the Hales cantaloupe, that seems to be the most favored seed sold by seed companies. We are eagerly awaiting the Israeli cantaloupe seeds that were just planted last week in the new field I had worked so hard to set up. It has germinated well and the seedlings have reached their second set of leaves stage in many cases. Looks like melons may be our principle crop here. So much else fails to grow in this environment, or does poorly. That’s all part of me learning how to farm. Figuring out what works and what doesn’t.

It’s time for my morning bible study with Cherie. I try to do that every day with her as it is part of my responsibility as the head of the household. We will be reading Ephesians chapter four, with a little bit of three and five to insure we get the context of what was written.