There will be a short pause...

...while I chase the budgie off the fridge.

2 weeks...

...and it'll be Talk Like A Pirate Day, again.

Also, today is Junior Ricardipus #2's fifth birthday.

And, since I seem to be posting random thoughts, here's a picture of the handsome little budgie who's been flying around our neighbourhood recently. He seems very healthy, although a trifle puzzled as to how to get the seed out of the tube feeders we have up for the finches. His beak is just the wrong shape. There's plenty of other seed around though, so he should be ok, at least until winter comes.

Labour Day Weekend

The end of the summer is here and next week will mark some milestones. Next week, Mrs. Ricardipus will be back at University for the first time in a long time, learning to be a teacher. The junior Ricardipi will therefore have their first experience with after-school daycare, and Junior Ricardipus #2 (who goes to Senior Kindergarten this year, two or three days a week), her first experience with all-day daycare, on those days she's not at school.

All of which will mean that I will have to pull up my socks, and take on more responsibilities for getting the juniors to school, occasionally from school, and distract occupy them while Mrs. R'pus is doing her own homework. Fair enough, really - she's put this career on hold for a lot of years while I sorted my own out.

So we packed the last weekend of the summer full of activities - the zoo on Saturday, where we saw all manner of animals as usual, including some surprising activity from the Dholes. Usually, they're just lazing around.

Junior #2 was very pleased see the Przewalski's horse foals, who are lurking around in this picture:

And there were those endearingly silly baby Ostriches, who were still eggs last time we were there. They're about three weeks old now, and the size of a bushel basket, roughly.

Plus I took the usual raft of photos of flowers and things:

More here.

And yesterday, off to Wonderland again where the two adults have discovered the water-slides... wheeeeeeeeeeee! Tag-teaming looking after the kids, and rushing off to the slides. It seems like a guilty pleasure, somehow.

Today, off to the local park and (I hope) relaxing at home a bit. Before all hell breaks loose tomorrow.

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In other news, the hummingbirds have been around the back yard, as they often are for a day or two in early fall, loading up on nectar for the long flight to Mexico. And there's been a blue and white budgie joyriding around the neighbourhood, which is not something you see every day.