Blooming bananas

It doesn't seem so long ago that we posted on the flower spike's emergence, but things are happening fast with our bananas. The flower stork shot up in the air and then promptly dived down towards the ground, at which I ran around panicking that the tree would fall over and we'd lose our babies. After some emailing and discussions we decided that we didn't need to prop the bunch yet since the trunk of our plant is so sturdy. Here is the latest shot.

The bunch is pretty big and smells beautiful and sweet. I had a peek today and here is the best bit.

I guess they are about 10cm long, with around 20 fruit in each bunch. I don't know how many hands we'll get, but I'm hoping we get at least 200 fingers (fruit) in all. I'm surprised that they're yellow, not green. Anyway, we'll let you know the ongoing progress.

Lacey seems to be doing a fairly good job of sitting on her eggs. One disappeared (I'm pretty sure she ate it), but apparently that's not too unusual. One day Amy found her off the nest, she had flown over the small fence and gone back into the laying boxes. We think she must have got a fright (rat?) and freaked out a bit. Amy put her straight back and we're hoping she wasn't off for too long and that the eggs are still viable. 8 days to go...