RustyRaven

I've certainly had plenty of these butterflies around my place. I'm hoping that there are enough predatory insects built up from snacking on my aphids that will cross over to butterfly larvae.

I am starting to make plans for the summer vegetable garden, and one of the big issues I will face will be too much sun. I need to work out ways to provide shade to the main garden, most of which gets full sun. I don't have money to spend on anything too major, but I have some shade cloth and bamboo so will hopefully be able to rig up something that works without impeding access too much.

What does everyone else do to protect their vegie garden from excess sun over summer?

I'm roasting beans today and have just finished my first batch. I'm experimenting with single origin blends combining a few different roasting profiles. These are the lightest roast I will do, the next batch will be a darker roast, with a half quantity of an even darker roast. In theory this will give a more complex flavour profile.

I am still quite new to roasting and I am trying out different things to see what I like. I generally do plunger coffee not espresso, and find I prefer lighter roasts in general. Small changes in how you roast can make big differences in the outcome though - I have been focussing on cooling the beans quickly after roasting which made a noticable improvement in flavour.

Taken 20 years ago in the remote Queensland town of Chillagoe. Known for limestone caves, Aboriginal art, nesting sites for the white-rumped swiftlet, and as the final resting place of my Volvo, which never made it home.

Are you a fan of espresso, cold brew, aeropress? Do you try new beans and roasters regularly, or stay with what you know and love?

I generally prefer filter coffee (with a re-usable filter, no oil sucking paper!) or plunger, but currently have only the plunger because of lack of space. A good syphon can also be supurb. I've also started roasting my own beans - I'm definitely a long way from expert, but am getting pretty solid results and am am slowly improving.

After my license number was leaked in the Latitude breach I decided to put a credit reporting ban in place to provide extra protection. Having applied for a couple of banking products since then and having had the bans lifted a couple of times I am a bit disturbed by how easy it is.

To lift the ban you just fill out an online form with name, address, birthdate and license number - the same information that someone trying to steal my identity would have. Why isn't there some sort of two factor identification check? It seems like it would be pretty easy for someone else to lift the ban in order to access credit in my name, and even though I would realise quickly that something was wrong when I received the confirmation email that the ban had been lifted it would be difficult to do anything about it.

The way Lemmy is organised tends to focus users on new and popular content, which means that slower moving ongoing conversations tend to sink in the page and get overlooked. A lot of valuable content is created in those slower discussions, so I am trying to set up ways to keep them visible and findable. I believe for a good group a moderator needs to be part librarian, not just rule enforcer.

I am creating ongoing topic threads which are linked to from the sidebar, and will also be linking them in the daily discussion thread where most activity in my group currently occurs. I am also looking into creating regular posts for specific topic discussions, which should help searchability. Making the system more complicated leads to users not following it though, so I want it to be as simple as possible to use and not have too many things like that happening at one time.

I would love to hear any other suggestions or about things you are doing to set up the structure of your groups.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/294482

A collection of flowers I photographed in the Grampians. These date back to 2008, when I would have been using a little 3mp Nikon compact camera I got 2nd hand.

A collection of flowers I photographed in the Grampians. These date back to 2008, when I would have been using a little 3mp Nikon compact camera I got 2nd hand.

With the weather so cold in Melbourne at this time of year I am really struggling to get anything done in the garden. I'm trying to keep on top of the weeding and do a bit of planting and harvesting in the vegetable garden, but mostly I'm just huddling inside and dreaming of Spring!

How do other gardeners in the colder states deal with winter? Do you rug up and just get it done, or leave the garden to it's own devices and stay inside?