Kippin etc.

Hmm. Any Japanese readers out there? or readers with Japanese friends? What is kippin, and what is Monpao and what is the difference? (Yes, I am trying to gather information about drying abalone. It's a very secretive process).

Today Barbs and I went to the school to talk about what being migrants meant. I think we shattered a few illusions, and hopefully got them to grips with a little bit of just how different the various types of migrants are, and, no, that all people coming to Australia are not boat-people or refugees from natural disasters. Maybe I should have said we lived in a mud hut and ate our neighbours, and they should be careful if invited for lunch.

I've net-covered the strawberries, and got a much appreciated huge bag of bits for the drip irrigation system. We're still moderately wet on this side of the island, but elsewhere it is drying out a lot. It's something -having grown up with summer rainfall - that I always find odd. Anyway, more plants have gone out today, willy-nilly because something was eating them in the seed trays. So King, Golden, and Healthy capsicum are now planted in the garlic bed (Garlic will have to come out in midsummer, and I hope that I can completely cover that tank in winter, making it into a little greenhouse.) The first of my grown from seed tomatoes (Stupice) is just starting to flower, but I do have a a tiny fruit on the dwarf yellow I bought in flower. Gah. I really must slug bait in the morning, as the lettuce (first iceberg, very sweet) was just full of tiny little slugs. They are in hte same bed as strawberries, and slugs love strawberries. I might have to beer trap the slugs as Wednesday the Labrador cannot come along and drink the beer under the net, like she did last time I tried this.

I'm hoiking out plants going to seed (lettuce, broccoli, silverbeet, and parsley). The silverbeet replacements are in, lettuce probably not worth putting in until Feb, broccoli even later, but I need more parsley. I have a lot of seed, but mostly moss-curled and we use italian in cooking and moss-curled for pretty, so I might have to let one plant finish. But they are a nuisance (taste lousy at this stage), and are huge.