There’s a twenty-eight parrot sitting on the veggie garden gate post. He is balancing on one leg and in the other foot he is holding a tomato. The tomato is almost the same shade of green as the parrot’s belly feathers. He’s remarkably dextrous, as he stands there eating the tomato. A part of me can’t help but admire his skill, but really I’m furious. That’s one of my tomatoes. One of my Roma tomatoes. I had been wondering why they weren’t fruiting. Now I know. They are. But I haven’t seen any because the twenty-eights are eating them. Now that I look closely, I can see two other twenty eights in amongst the low-growing Roma bushes. Their camouflage is impressive, as if they were designed to hide in tomato patches.
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