06/19/2010 ***Hyacinth Macaw This bird is from South America. It is the largest of the flying parrots with a length of nearly 40 inches and a wingspan of nearly 60 inches. They are also pretty pricey to acquire as pets. They range from $8,000 to about $15,000. For the price, it would seem that you'd get a talking parrot. But they are probably the poorest talkers of all of the Macaws. So why the price tag? Well, the pet market has driven these birds to endangerment. They are a protected species. If you look closely at this one's wings, you can see where they have been clipped to prevent him from flying.
06/18/2010 ***Camouflage?
06/17/2010 ***Teamwork! Thank you all so much for all of the comments on yesterday's portrait of our little Paul McCartney look alike. I am blown away by all of the kind comments. Today's image is from an evening in the back yard with our two youngest kids, Andrew (14) and Celine (11). We have recently been loved upon by our home owners' association with letters of yard maintenance violations (except they are rather non-descriptive. and don't tell us exactly what the violations are). Today, when I took Celine to get her recreation tag (so she can use the community pool), I was informed that if we are documented for one more violation, we will loose our pool privileges. So we put Andrew and Celine to work in the back yard pulling up the weed-block. We decided to let the grass grow in areas that until now were designated for mulch. I'm reasonably certain that this is not what the association is looking for. But at least I have picture evidence that our kids are capable of working together :) As for our beef with the association, we were told that we have a history over the years of numerous violations. When we looked up the record on line, we see that since we bought the house in 2004, we received 13 letters in 2007 and 3 this year. Of the 13 in 2007, 7 were sent on the same day, 1 for each item that was in our driveway at the time of a single drive through. This is apparently what they consider a long history of violations. We will be attending the HOA meeting this coming Monday. We have a few things to say about how our HOA dues are being spent. :) It's Thursday everybody! Go take pictures!
