Rock Wallabies

This past weekend, I had been invited to go yard-saling with a couple American Girls on Saturday and had a great time. My best score was a pair of Bushnell binoculars, a stunning ceramic bowl from, I since found out, an award-winning ceramicist, a dirty trowel, some tall glasses and a reel-type lawn mower - all for 40 bucks.
We have little lawn here. I wish we had none. We're in a desert and it's an embarrassing waste of water. It has its own sprinkler system and we Americans have the greenest lawns in town. Well, go us.
The second Thomas saw that reel mower, he was smitten. It's mechanical. It's mildly destructive. He gets to "drive" it himself. It spins, it chops, it slices, it dices...

And so, he mowed and mowed.
He mowed from noon till suppertime. It got dark and he hollered, fought and screamed at the injustice of having to stop. If I EVER blow this one like I did his fascination with doing laundry, I'll never forgive myself.
Sunday afternoon, he started using "the M word" again and Tom and I had to change the subject. We went off to Heavitree Gap Lodge. We'd heard you could feed the wild wallabies there. Boy, can you.
Of course, "wild" is relative. The lodge is a campground, motel, restaurant and grocery store. The camp store sells a bag ofwallaby feed for a dollar. Looks like rabbit pellets. We got there around sunset as that's when the wallabies come down from the McDonnell range for supper. About 2 dozen people and an equal number of rock wallabies were already paired up.
Briefly, wallabies are a small version of a kangaroo. This type is endangered as they used to be all over Australia and are now only in the rocks of the McDonnell range that runs alongside
Alice Springs.
I don't know how long people have been feeding the wallabies at Heavitree. Some were very tame and came right over to eat and could even be petted. Some hung back, took longer to approach or hopped away and hid.
Thomas joined right in. I watched him being so gentle with these soft, mysterious creatures, thinking what a great experience this is for him. Then, my brain said, "Excuse me? Get down there!" I made him scootch over and soon had myself a handful of feed and tiny black claws holding my finger. I beamed at Tom and said, "I'm in Australia feeding a wallaby."
We enjoyed it all, took photos and videos for about a half-hour until it was really dark. Tom and I started wrapping it up and he took the cameras to the car. I kept thinking I should keep one, but we'd gotten more than enough of photos.
Thomas kept at it and was trying to lure one adult away from a boy next to him when a tiny head, no bigger than a squirrel's, popped out of her pouch. Two big papery ears followed. A tiny nose sniffed at his hand and he held one bit of feed out to the little joey who took it.
My mouth hung open. Tom went back for the camera. There, in the dark, while Momma munched away, we each got to touch the tiny baby's wee head.

Less than 10 minutes from our house, every day at sunset, this magic happens.