The ultimate in kinktomato

[st_aurafina]

Fire update
- Watch and wait warnings about the Carlisle River fire to the southeast of me
- Evacuation orders ahead of the Budj Bim firefront northwest of me
- I casually use words like 'firefront' now
- Some moron put a smouldering cigarette butt into our pillar box and the postmistress is ropeable


I put a purple arrow where me and lilacsigil are at.

Maybe it's more like a magenta arrow, idk. Anyway, we're on the left-hand side of the state. The really orange-red area on the left? That's East Gippsland, which is in a bad, bad way. I am scared but I'm safe.


Garden update
The zucchinis are turning yellow and weird, and the problem seems to be low pollination rates. It's not blossom rot, because we put lime down and feed regularly. This site said that hot, dry weather can reduce the amount of pollen transferred:
Why Do My Zucchini Turn Yellow While Growing?

I feel weird about these instructions, okay? I just feel weird about it:
The simplest hand-pollination techniques is to pick a male flower, peel back its petals and rub the structure at its center -- covered with yellow pollen -- into the center of open female flowers. If you're going to take the time to hand pollinate, make sure you're not wasting your time. Pollen is only viable for one day and is at its best when the flowers first open in the morning, so make hand pollinating your first chore of the day.

Nonetheless I diligently made it the first chore of the day. Because I want zucchini bread.


My hovercraft is full of eels: a Pythonesque tour of my garden

My watering can is full of frogs! (It's not trapped, it just seems to like hanging around in there while we carry it around and water things.)


My oregano is full of skinks! (When I water, they all come running out, appalled, then flash back inside)


My lavender is full of bees! (They're lovely, the whole row of plants hums and shimmers with bees)


My eggplant flower is full of spikes! (This is the vagina dentata of hand pollinating. The bees better do their thing, because I do not dare.)



Link Spam
- via fail_fandomanon:
How you can donate and help the volunteer firefighters in Australia's bushfire crisis

- At the ABC:
Supercell bushfire thunderstorms, tornadoes, fire-whirls and other deadly fires that spin (lilacsigil - do not read this. Or watch the video underneath.)

- via me on facebook, because I was very reassured by the way it helped me understand how co-ordinated and experienced our volunteer firefighters are. They are so great.
Lexton Fire 20/12/19
In this footage, taken from Ararat FCV which was used as a Strike Team Leaders’ vehicle, our strike team and others were tasked with asset protection at the Rainbow Serpent Festival Site.

While this footage looks chaotic, with vehicles circling everywhere, this is process is fairly coordinated. The Strike Team Leaders vehicle circles around to check the assets on the property and to prioritise and delegate tasks to the tankers as required.

- also from facebook, and as a palate cleanser from all that intense fire fighting:
Potaroo and baby eating strawberries

- For people who expressed interest in the Person of Interest Bookclub where we read the big bang fics of 2018 (before the 2020 big bang gets underway fingers crossed), the post is here:
Book Club for January 2020

- Via olivermoss and because it's never not funny to me that this is a Yuletide fandom:
“You’re My Present This Year”: An Oral History of the Folgers Incest Ad

- At BBC.com, because I love stories about photographs found in thrift stores:
Anonymous Project: A Secret History Hiding in Plain Sight

- via scans_daily and also via the twittersphere's reaction to Cats which was priceless:
THE CAST OF “CATS” AS MEDIEVAL CAT PAINTINGS: A THREAD

- via me googling how-to exercise videos then reading that someone was a kettlebell champion then discovering that this is an actual sport (the article is from 2017 but it was interesting):
Australian athletes weigh in on the emerging Kettlebell sport

- via jaggedwolf, a collection of podcasts premiered in 2019:
All of 2019's Audio Drama/Fiction Podcast Debut Releases

- at My Modern Met:
100+ Museums Turn Their Collections Into Free Downloadable Coloring Books

- via brithistorian:
Royal Derby Hospital: Disposable sterile hijabs introduced

- via fred_mouse:
The world is hooked on Australian coffee culture. This is how it got so good
I had a flattie in Albury the other day that was twice as good as anything I saw in a fortnight in Italy. The entire island of Manhattan has fewer really good places to get a coffee than Canberra.
(This cracked me up. "Maaaate, let's grab a flattie in Canberra!" I just. I just can't.)

- via, ummm, vass I think? Um. Apologies to whomever it was if it wasn't vass:
Geeky license plate earns hacker $12,000 in parking tickets

Good old Bobby Drop Tables.

Comments

[sholio]

oh lord, I grow squash and hand-pollinate because they have to be grown in a greenhouse around here and therefore pollinators can't get in. I feel SO WEIRD about it. SO WEIRD. I mean, I realize that they're just flowers and don't care, but those are some creepily sexual-looking flower parts, damn it.

Otherwise, all I got is *hugs*.

[rydra_wong]

I was going to make a sex pollen joke but then I realized that all pollen is, in fact, sex pollen for plants, so the joke just collapses in on itself.

[conuly]

What, you don't like masturbating your zucchini flowers?

[st_aurafina]

Those flowers never gained my consent, is all I'm saying.

[thisbluespirit]

I feel weird about these instructions, okay? I just feel weird about it:

LOL!

As to the rest, I feel the photography collection is clearly a Sapphire & Steel incident just waiting to happen. (I think Steel was glowering over my shoulder as I read).

And, as to the rest: *hugs*

[st_aurafina]

That collection is a Sapphire and Steel incident, you're so right!

*hugs back*

[dancing_serpent]

I am scared but I'm safe.

Perfectly understandable. I hope you'll stay safe!

[st_aurafina]

Thank you! So far, so good.

[kore]

I am so so glad you guys are okay.

pick a male flower, peel back its petals and rub the structure at its center -- covered with yellow pollen -- into the center of open female flowers

SNRK

Plant porn! Like Goethe! (I think it was Goethe who wrote this long, WILD poem about plant porn.)

[st_aurafina]

I got out there and found that I've got one big female flower (omg, what a sentence) and a whole bunch of unopened male flowers, and I'm just so confused. It's a harem or something out there.

Plant porn! Like Goethe! (I think it was Goethe who wrote this long, WILD poem about plant porn.)

I'm very much feeling like Georgia O'Keeffe, getting up close and personal with all the sexy parts of the flower.

[commoncomitatus]

Fingers crossed you guys stay safe! <3

If it brings some vague amusement in dark times, I may have misread 'potaroo and baby eating strawberries' to 'potaroo and baby-eating strawberries'. The relief I felt on getting to the vid was... something. >.>

[st_aurafina]

'potaroo and baby-eating strawberries'.

Ohnoes!! That would have been terrible, and I would never. Not without appropriate warnings, I promise.

[smallhobbit]

Lovely pics!

I've just been looking at a map to get a better idea of where you are. Horrible situation - thinking of you.

[st_aurafina]

Thank you! And yeah, it's just so much. So bad.

[vass]

Thank you for keeping us posted. ♥

I guess that answers notalwaysweak's question. They were asking if the Gippsland fires had joined up with the NSW fires yet. So that looks like a yes. And that's horrifying.

Guess where my parents were going for their regular Boxing Day to New Year holiday with friends of the family? Guess where they very definitely did not go? Their hosts have put their belongings in storage and cleared out of there, there being Metung. Family friend's daughter and son-in-law were on holiday in Noosa, and she (the daughter) hasn't been able to come back because asthma.

a smouldering cigarette butt into our pillar box

Some fucking people. That'd be terrible behaviour at any time, but now... words fail.

Your frog and skink are adorable, and I love the image of the bee-shimmering lavender.

(This is the vagina dentata of hand pollinating. The bees better do their thing, because I do not dare.)

Do you have a paintbrush? Maybe eggplants are into that.

[laurenthemself]

I did see in passing someone referring to them as the 'East Coast fires' on Twitter, and wow, damn, that's just A Lot.

Seeing this happy wildlife pleases me. I'm planning to buy one of those clamshell pools and make a water station for wildlife in the yard.

[yuuago]

<3 <3

Oh boy. That zucchini pollinating sure is... something. xD

[st_aurafina]

It sure is. I feel... used.

[oracne]

It's okay if the zucchinis consent and enjoy it.

Those fires are scary.

And thank you for the PoI link.

[st_aurafina]

But what about my consent, damn it!!? Actually, I'm okay now I've actually gone and done it. It wasn't so bad after all.

You're welcome for the POI link!

[out_there]

>"Maaaate, let's grab a flattie in Canberra!" I just. I just can't.)

Hee! I personally found that the coffee in Italy was good -- I'm not a huge coffee snob but I didn't have any bad coffee there. Whereas the USA... man, a short Starbucks double shot just barely scrapes the minimum standard for a reasonable cup of coffee. And I had an airport cafe coffee that was coloured milky water. Eurgh.

[st_aurafina]

I personally found that the coffee in Italy was good

Yeah, I kind of disagreed with the article there, because that's where the coffee machines all came from, right?

I once got a takeaway coffee from Subway which was olive green. I was too scared to drink it.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad you're safe (for now). I've just been sitting here, an ocean away, staring at those incident maps, watching the fires join up, encroaching slowly on my friends and relatives in Canberra, the Blue Mountains, the NSW South Coast, and so on. The whole thing is utterly horrific.

I loved the article about coffee. When I first moved to the UK, the coffee was vile (and whenever I complained about it, British friends would be like, 'but you can get nice coffee in Starbucks/British coffee chain equivalents'). Thankfully, NZ and Australian baristas seem to have changed that, and I now can get pretty good coffee, as long as I go to the right places.

[st_aurafina]

Yeah, it's been shocking. lilacsigil is from Gippsland, and has family in Nowra, and it's just so many familiar places in strife.

Thankfully, NZ and Australian baristas seem to have changed that, and I now can get pretty good coffee, as long as I go to the right places.

It's so weird - Italy's not that far away, and the UK got plenty of WWII Italian immigrants on the same wave. I don't understand why coffee culture came here and not there.

[lurkingcat]

Watering can frog! So cute!

[st_aurafina]

It's a very determined frog! It seems to have made a home in there.

[nixwilliams]

Glad you're OK for now. I have been thinking about you.

[st_aurafina]

Heyyy! Thank you. I'll bet you're missing all this fun, huh?

[pauraque]

What a cute little frog!

[st_aurafina]

Isn't it? We call them eyeliner frogs, because their kohl game is fierce.

[earthspirits]

Worried about you guys. I so empathize with the horrors of the fire season. *hugs*

Stay safe!

[st_aurafina]

*hugs hugs* Yes, our turn came around, didn't it?

[worlds_of_smoke]

-offers all the hugs- I'm glad to hear you're safe and hope you stay that way. <3

[st_aurafina]

*hugs hugs* Thank you - so far, so good.

[hibernate]

- Fire-proof hugshugshugs :(

- When I woke up this morning, I did not think today was going to be the day I learned how to masturbate a zucchini flower. Is this post M-rated?? (I want fic)

- Little critters!!! That frog is the cutest.

- Folgercest: the gift that keeps on giving.

[st_aurafina]

*hugshugs*

When I woke up this morning, I did not think today was going to be the day I learned how to masturbate a zucchini flower.

*themoreyouknow.gif*

[resolute]

Thinking of y'all re the fires and general climate catastrophe.

[st_aurafina]

Thank you! *hugshugs*

[libbi]

Oh goodness, the map. ♥

I really enjoyed reading the links, especially the Folgers Commercial one (on GQ of all places, I never expected that) and the one about Australian coffee. My favorite drink at Starbucks is the Flat White-I'm assuming that's what a flattie is? One day I'd like to visit and see if it's any different!

The Book Club is a wonderful idea! I haven't read many PoI fanworks, so I'll happily participate.

[st_aurafina]

Incest coffee? In GQ? It's more likely than you think! So funny.

Yeah, it's a flat white, which is hilarious to me because it's not really a thing? It's the coffee people order when they don't want foam, and that's all? We do have great coffee, though, because all of the Italian immigrants post-WWII (my grandfather was one of them.)

The Book Club is a wonderful idea! I haven't read many PoI fanworks, so I'll happily participate

Oh, super! I'm hoping people participate, because the worst thing would be to make the post and nobody shows up. Thank you!

[lebateleur]

Glad to hear you are all right, and hope you stay safe.

Those pictures are lovely! Bees in lavender bushes are one of summer's great pleasures. :)

[st_aurafina]

Thank you! Me too.

Bees are so precious! I'm glad to have a garden that makes them welcome.

[heartonsnow]

Some Zucchinis are naturally yellow.

The fires are shocking, I am horrified by them. From the UK it sounds like the management of them is not working out but that may just be from here.

[ironed_orchid]

The fire services have been doing the best they can with cuts to funding over the last few years. The government is failing in NSW and on a federal level. The Victorian govt is doing a lot better at responding. .

[mab_browne]

The pics are very cute. My closest sighting of skinks was when I was cleaning for a lady whose cat would leave their stick-like little corpses in the bath. *sigh*

As for the fires... I hope that your country gets some good news.

More trivially, if not cheerfully, I miss flat whites, as finding a lactose free version isn't something I've had any luck with in local establishments.

[st_aurafina]

whose cat would leave their stick-like little corpses in the bath.

Oh, no!! Little ratbags.

finding a lactose free version isn't something I've had any luck with in local establishments.

It's so hard!! I can tolerate enough lactose to have a latte now and then, but if I could stomach a long black, I'd drink coffee all the damn time. Soy doesn't work for me, and almond milk is touch and go, depending on how long since it was opened. *sigh*

[ozqueen]

Oh wow, thanks for linking that video of the Lexton fire. I had missed it in all the chaos that is fires/terrible environmental news everywhere but I'm glad to have seen it - I grew up 10 mins from Lexton and my mum still lives out there so we've been watching this one with a fairly high level of stress.

Glad to hear you're okay in your part of the world! ♥

[st_aurafina]

That was a great video - I was very reassured by the competence of it. I know they have decided not to have the Rainbow Serpent festival in summer anymore, which is good in a way.

You stay safe too, okay?

[iberiandoctor]

Glad to hear you’re safe. Thinking of you guys.

[st_aurafina]

Thank you, you too.