Weekend recap

Another busy weekend for us! In addition to the vegetable CSA I've discussed, we also signed up for a fruit CSA this year. The fruit CSA is run by a family that has orchards of antique, exotic, and old-time varieties of fruit. Friday was the first week for our pickup, and we had several varieties of apples, pears, and even some plums!

Definitely very different from what we can find in the store here!

My run on Saturday (20.5 miles) went well. The marathon is less than a month away, and then I'll be back to more normal distances again!

Sunday afternoon, we went on a hike at this lovely state park not too far from our house. It's a bit hard to see from this picture, but there are tons of springs bubbling up through the sand:

One thing I love about this place is the many different habitats we run across. This boardwalk leads to a lookout where we always see at least a few fish. Shortly after I took this picture, a frog jumped up on the boardwalk and hopped around a few times, including once on my shoe (!), before jumping back into the marsh.
This wasn't the most beautiful (in terms of blooming flowers) site we passed, but there was something about the coherence of the colors and textures that made me take its picture. Thomas gave me a hard time about photographing weeds!
This frog really blended in to the ground. He looks similar to the one we saw on the boardwalk, but this was in a different area of the park.
On our way home, we saw a sign marking a boat launch, so we investigated. We've been contemplating starting to canoe, and if we do, this will be one of the places we go. Doesn't the sky look almost fake, it's so perfect? What a great day we had!
On to other goings on at our house.

On Saturday afternoon, I was relaxing on the couch (running so long definitely takes a lot out of me!) Thomas was playing video games, shirtless, and then ran upstairs to put on a red long-sleeved shirt (the same one he's wearing in the picture above). Rocky went nuts attacking him. Thomas realized that Rocky had tried to attack him yesterday when he was wearing the same shirt, so he went upstairs and came down wearing a red T-shirt instead.

Rocky was still agitated. I said to Thomas, "Are you doing this just to bug him? He's used to you playing shirtless all summer and red is setting him off. Please put on a shirt of a different color." Thomas scoffed at me and jokingly said that Rocky would get used to it. Thomas sat down, started playing, and Rocky bit his hip, through the shirt (see above left).

Of course, I laughed (which I shouldn't do since it only encourages Rocky), but I had predicted what would happen. On a subconscious level, Thomas knew as well. He intentionally put on a red T-shirt because he "wasn't going to let a macaw dictate my wardrobe." Later on, Rocky was once again fine with red clothing.

I know I've posted similar photos recently, but Stella is just so curious and inquisitive lately. She alternated between eating things off of the salad and throwing them on the ground.As I've mentioned, she loves the stove. We have to be very careful to make sure she's in her cage when any kind of stove activity is taking place (or has recently taken place where it might be hot). She's drawn to it like a moth to a flame. It's very strange. She especially likes to perch on the burners.We got tons of zucchini in our vegetable CSA, which means zucchini bread and muffins! The parrots love these, and Max did help herself to some when she was unattended in the kitchen.

We also got corn, so Thomas made some sort of sauteed corn dish. He was offering some to the parrots, and of course they all loved it (corn is a definite favorite!) I was trying to capture Max eating the corn in a funny manner, but she stopped when I got close with the camera. The reason I'm still posting this is for the background noise in the first half of the video.

As the stove had recently been on (and, in fact, some soup was still simmering), Stella was in her cage because I can't risk her getting burned. She's getting used to this, but that doesn't mean she has to like it! When she's in the living room, she will sing and make noises to try to get us to let her out.

The noises she's making in the first part of this video she picked up from Max. When there's a song on that Max really likes, she sings in this manner. Stella is a fantastic mimic and has picked up pretty much all of Max's utterings. In fact, I can no longer tell which one is making the noise! She also made a loud Daphne noise and some typical grey vocalizations.

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! It's been cooling down here, which I love. Fall is my favorite time of year (I sometimes say that about spring, too). On my run this morning, I noticed there are some trees whose leaves have already changed colors, and others who have lost quite a few leaves already. How fast the time flies!