A walk in the park

There is a 100 acre park just behind our apartment. Not only does this mean we have a great view, but it also means when we walk to anything to the east the journey is very lovely.

On Saturday, we walked to the nearest large grocery store, starting out in the park. The weather was just lovely. All my friends in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Washington DC were posting pictures of multiple feet of snow all weekend. We had green grass and blue skies. I'm sorry, New Jersey. Summertime makes my heart sing.

These people in white are playing cricket. I don't know how you play cricket, but summer is cricket season, and the game is played in the park in several fields all weekend long.

Over by the playground we noticed a couple of gray birds on the ground.

Looking closer, I realized they had pink heads and tufted feathers. Galah cockatoos! This was the first time we have seen galahs in the city. We have only seen them before out in the hills. They are very fun, social birds. When we've seen them before, they've been in groups, all laughing together as though they were having a fun family reunion. These two were just digging in the grass. Here is Tim, getting closer to take a better picture.

Here is the picture Tim took.

And, because neither of us got really close, and we only had phone cameras, here is a picture of a galah from Wikipedia. Thanks Wikipedia!

["Eolophus roseicapilla" by Toby Hudson - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eolophus_roseicapilla.jpg#/media/File:Eolophus_roseicapilla.jpg]

 At the south end of the park we found this tree, blooming bright red with dark seed pods. I can't figure out what it is. Any tree specialists?

Everyone else was playing cricket, but this group of people had climbed into giant plastic balls to play soccer. Sometimes you've just got to do your own thing.

And then later that night, we watched the full moon rise over the park from our apartment windows.

Finally, because there were so many snow pictures on Facebook, I realized we really needed to continue to take advantage of summertime. So we packed a picnic and had dinner in the park on Sunday. The city provides gas grills in all the parks, with gas. And they clean them and maintain them. We just brought meat and sides and a table cloth.

When we finished eating, we threw a frisbee around for a while. Has everyone had enough warmth and sunshine and green grass and blue sky? Yes? Ok. Now let's go home and post these pictures. 

I love summer.