2 Healthy Babies

Our lovelyEmerald hatched out 2 healthy baby chicks and we fed them and raised them and they grew up and left home and joined the wild flock way before we were ready :(We do know they are both well and alive and they come to visit Emerald and live out there with Saphire, and we don't really mind, they are happy , healthy and free and you can't wish much more than that for your children.

Miss Emerald has an Egg!

Our lovely Emerald and her handsome Sapphire have finally laid an egg. We have been watching all the mating and nesting behaviour and have been eagerly awaiting the first egg, so it was with great joy Mr11 ran down the hallway to share the good news first thing this morning.

Sapphire has been very vocal and active all over the neighborhood this morning , we think he must be telling everyone. Our birds have free access in and out of their cage, so he really can share his good news all over the neighborhood.
Mr7 also observed the kookaburra couple we have been watching in one of our trees and noticed the gentleman kooka feeding his lady this morning, just like Saph has been feeding Em this morning, so he has surmised they might have laid their first egg this morning as well.

This has of course interrupted our day and our chocolate study, we simply had to research every thing about lorikeet breeding and there are endless questions about kookaburra breeding still to be answered, but I have manged to lure the boys back to the table with a bowl of chocolate salad, this is a bit of a Rockpool tradition, and is basically a bowl with mixed pieces of block chocolate in it and it did the trick nicely and they are now writing up and drawing food webs.

Emerald looking for Flowers

With all the rain and mud here Miss Emerald has been cooped up inside so we took her out for some fresh air today.

Mr10 wanted some photos of her as inspiration for a couple of watercolour pictures he is going to paint..


And Miss Em, she just wanted some nice fresh flowers.

Unlikely Friends

Emerald is preening Minx

Minx is purring

Minx is rolling around so Emi can get all over her

They seem to love each other and Emerald races up to Minx as soon as she sees her, Minx buts her head into Emerald and rolls on top of her, Emi jumps out just in time then jumps back on top of Minx.

They are lovely but I am locking Em into her cage when they can't be directly supervised or when one of them gets a bit rowdy.

Back into the swing of things....

We all survived my week at Artsfest. I had a fantastic time and loved going out everyday to do my own thing- its only been 10 years or so since I did that type of thing-
My wonderful friend Rhondella held the fort and looked after the boys- Thanks Rhondella! The boys enjoyed their week as well and I think Rhondella even had a bit of a break from her own hectic life while she was out here or out "bush" as she calls it.

Mr10 has been spending lots of time with Emi and trying to teach her all sorts of new tricks, sometimes she wolf whistles and sometimes she laughs like Mr5 and sometimes she makes noises like Minxy our pussy cat, she is learning so much, He has also been taking Emerald outside to browse in the callistemons and grevilleas-


She is a brave little bird and quite enjoys it, she gets so excited hopping around from flower to flower and calling out to all the other parrots flying around.


It is cooling off here, now the rain has finally stopped, the beds are made up with nice snuggly flannelet sheets and the quilts are back. The days have been spectacular though.

We are getting back into our homeschool routine this week and the boys started back at swimming today and when we came home Daddy had hung an interesting load out on our clothesline-


We have been making Easels

It is our local Agricultural show next week and the boys are madly finishing off things to go into the show so this week is shaping up to be busy-

Parrot Toys

I love the fact that having a new pet to love
brings so many learning opportunities for the boys and for me.
They have observed parrots, in the wild and in books, and at the pet shops.
They have researched diet and behaviour, training and what will make Emerald happy.

They pick her special flowers and share their fruit with her, and if we see something she might like, they apply all of their persuasive powers to encourage me to see the necessity of Emerald having that item- lol.

.A few shots of her having a bath

In our cyber researching we have come across a couple of outstanding parrot resources.
The first one is The Parrot Rescue Centre These people are simply fabulous.

The Parrot Rescue Centre is dedicated in improving the lives of suffering, abused and unwanted pet parrots by providing an appropriate environment for their individual needs. One of our main aims is to educate as many people as possible on the correct diet, housing, enrichment and training of parrot

And the other great site is a super friendly and so informative bird forum - Smileys Birds Australia

With all of this inspirational research we have been inspired to make Emerald some new toys and have just placed an order for some nice bits and pieces from the Parrot Rescue Centre and will be on the look out for safe things to use.