Late Spring

Spring is almost over, and we are heading into summer here in Wollongong. Since it was summer when we arrived back in January, the warmer weather brings back memories of our first few weeks in Australia. It has also brought back the parrots – they were never really gone, but for some reason I didn’t see them as much during the winter. Now they are in my back yard just about every day (and the fact that the plums on our plum trees are ripening up probably has a little something to do with it). It’s so nice to be renting a house with fruit trees in the back yard. We have two plum trees that have the most delicious little plums on them. They remind me of the plums that I used to get from my grandmother’s backyard. They have so much more flavor than those big ones you get at the supermarket. Here’s what they look like:

Here are a couple of rainbow lorikeets that were on our back porch a few days ago:

Other types of parrots that we see at our house are cockatoos, galahs, crimson rosellas, and king parrots. Speaking of parrots…I have heard people say that human beings are the only creatures on earth that waste their resources – well those people have never seen parrots in a fruit tree. I don’t mind them eating the fruit, it’s the way they eat it. They’ll take two or three little bites and then jump to the next one on the branch, so to eat one plum worth of fruit they usually ruin about four or five plumbs! It’s really aggravating but thankfully I’m not a fruit farmer (otherwise I’d be looking for some recipes for parrot stew).

In other news, Emily’s aunt requested a closer picture of one of our blue tongue lizards. Here you go Tara:

And last but not least, Emily and the baby are still doing well. She is now at 22 weeks, so she is a little more than halfway through the pregnancy.