Markus is a swinger

During their visit, Oma and Tante Ulla wanted to find Markus an early birthday present. They came to me for help, but alas, I could offer none. He is not a stuff guy, which makes gifts rather challenging. His birthday gives me fits every year, so I told them they would have to involve him in selecting the best prezzie. Much to everyone's surprise, he found a gift on the next trip out of the house and has been happy as a clam with it since. He chose a hammock swing, which he promptly rigged up from the jacaranda tree in the backyard.


In the evenings when the shadows are long and the Fremantle Doctor provides glorious temperatures and fresh air, that swing is the swinging place to be. Both of the girls really enjoy it. Markus would happily remain there until the mosquitos come out each night. It's a great spot of reading, knitting, or just simply lounging, swinging to and fro in the breeze.


The other night, Ellie climbed into the swing with Markus to continue a lengthy discussion about the remaining jacaranda flowers on the tree. These days, almost every discussion with Ellie is a lengthy (and almost wholly one-sided) discussion involving fascinating logic and introspection. That night, she was greatly concerned about the remaining flowers being too high for the bees. She felt the need to somehow reach them herself and get them down so the bees could access them to make honey. We think the background logic for this is a new favorite German DVD Tante Ulla brought her called "Biene Maia", about a sweet, friendly young bee and her friends as they are learning how to be bees (they only visit flowers growing out of the ground). As with any conversation of Ellie's, the subject changes often and dialogue is round-about....but it is fun (and often impressive) to listen to her.



Please excuse all the dead-looking grass in the background. About a month ago, the grass was cut too short and the brutal Australian sun fried it to a crisp. With daily watering, it's slowly coming back. Doesn't look too nice in the interim, though.