Heartless Landlord evicts young mother.

Apparently, many people know that mourning doves have two clutches of eggs every spring. Until this weekend I didn't know that.

Being the heartless cull that I am, I decided that I had had enough and it was time for momma dove to leave. I think she was quite surprised that I carried out my threat this time. She let me walk right up to her and almost touch the nest before she flew away with a few choice chirps for me that I can't repeat on a family blog.

I set the nest down on the ground figuring that would be the end of it but momma wasn't through with me. While I disassembled the winter cover, momma continued to fly around chirping and keeping an eye on me.

At the end of a few hours on Saturday I had the cover off.



On Sunday I came all prepared to wash the boat of its winter grime and start sanding and varnishing the toerails. Momma had other plans for me as I found her back on her nest where I had set it under the boat.



After a few tense moments we came to an agreement. I agreed to put the ladder on the port side and work on interior projects and thus not get the nest wet with hull washing, and in return momma promised to let me make all the noise I want inside and not give me those dovey eyes that make me feel so guilty.

So I used my time on Sunday to clean up the epoxy squeeze out from around the bamboo cabin sole. That took more time than I expected. The hatch covers sit pretty tight and the smallest amount of epoxy in the corners were keeping the hatches from sitting properly. After some boring detail work I realized that my router back at home would come in very useful. Using a quarter round bit I simply rounded the lower edges of the hatch boards which made the hatches drop into place easily. Sunday afternoon was for holiday socializing (my girlfriend made me go and be social).

Monday I was tied up with holiday guests for a few hours but I did manage to spend a bit of time cleaning up the sole and buying some materials for the final finish work.

So here is how the sole looks today:





So far I am pretty happy with the look. I have satin finish polyurethane for the bamboo and a close match of paint for the exposed bits of hull and hatch fiddles. I need to do a bit more fairing before the paint though. The hatches sit just a bit low so I need to build up the edges that they sit on slightly and I want to smooth the exposed hull surfaces as well before I paint.

The highest priority next week is to sand and varnish my starved toerails. Now that the sun is beating down on them I really feel the need to get them protected. Its nice having teak that can take the abuse but I would like to limit the abuse as much as a I can.

As I was leaving today, Momma Dove posed for one last photograph.