Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote...

If you recognize this sentence, and aren't a senior in high school, you are perhaps afflicted with the same random memory wiring that I have. The kind of thing that lets you memorize all the words to a random movie (Hunt for Red October, for example, complete with Sean Connery's fake Russian/Scottish accent). But you couldn't force Organic Chemistry into your brain with a crowbar (which is the way I tried to do it, I think, thus my failure).

But...it helps you make bizarre connections in your head sometimes.

For the rest of you, this is the first line of the Middle English version of Chaucer's Canterbury tales. It is a penance than many of us pay for a high school diploma, a particular brand of humiliation laid on us in the form of having to learn the words to a story in a language that no one uses anymore. But wait, I took 4 years of Latin, too, so, I guess I must...like that kind of stuff? hmmmm....

Here's the series of lines that I particularly like and remember from this (in English this time):

When April with his sweet showers has
pierced the drought of March to the root...
...(so Nature pricks them in their hearts):
then people long to go on pilgrimages...

It is an interesting concept to me that at different times of the year, Nature seems to prick me in the heart (in lesser-know words of Chaucer "O' thou sophomoric wit, inserteth thine oaf-brayned humour thither") and I feel differently about things. I would almost characterize it as a different physiological response, but, however it is characterized, it absolutely rings true with me.

I walked out onto my patio and see that, again, doves have started roosting in the rose trellis outside our window. Here's a picture:



It's one of my favorite times of year to see the doves protecting their nests, building shelter, and eyeing us as we move around them to play, water the flowers, offer them a bite of an ice cream cone (Ryan), and shriek loudly (mostly Kaitlyn). Once they get settled, they won't move. Fran got mad at one a few years ago because she nested in her beautiful, expensive hanging basket--so Fran continued to water the plant anyway. When the water would run into the plant, the dove would cry out "Wooooo!!!!!" Much like me in the shower when the dishwasher kicks on....

I feel very protective of these dove, and have even been known to dump bird feed around them so they can get up and eat if they want. I've also picked up baby birds that are learning how to fly and help them back into their nest. Trust me, it's actually pretty creepy to be holding it while it is flapping wildly.

Then something happens.

The springtime turns to scorching heat and the nest empties as the mother and babies move on. Despite constant irrigation, eventually we lose the battle and the rose trellis stops blooming. The doves have left, but we know they will come back next year.

Then fall comes. Around September, my index finger starts to twitch a little and there's nothing more in the world I want to see than this:



I know, it's a little crude, but you have to admire that picture (don't you?). If you can't tell, this is a mourning dove on the opening day of dove season, which is September 1st.

In "The Green Hills of Africa", Ernest Hemingway describes a safari where he is bird hunting: “they come whistling back, passing faster than you can load and shoot…then (you) only take fancy shots because you know now you can get all that (you) can use or carry…” I’ve only been on a few hunts where I felt that overwhelming confidence and satisfaction, and it’s both something you always hope for and something that is bittersweet when it happens. But that was the way I felt this day, right outside the gates of the King Ranch in South Texas—we had almost shot our limit and we had hours and hours of daylight left. I decided to get my camera and get the best picture I could of a dove in the shotgun sights. My evil idea was to tease Gar by sending it to him….
I leaned against the truck and waited. Although it looks far away, it’s actually just about 15 yards from the end of my muzzle—I waited a ridiculously long time before I raised my gun and took the picture (no dove was injured in the making of this photo).

The cool air, the sunrise in the morning while sitting in the field, getting up early with the guys, putting on camo (in Texas, the way you tell a city-slicker from a country boy is this: If your camo patterns all match, you aren’t a real hunter), eating greasy eggs and greasier bacon and drinking black coffee before getting out into the field. Thinking about rattlesnakes (okay, maybe that’s just me). It’s undeniable, though—a physiological response. A pricking of the heart by Nature.

I wonder of those English teachers really know what they are up to when they teach this stuff?