That’s the beauty of Pancake Day - you can have pancakes at any time!

Was it any of these?

• Painted lady butterfly
• Copper butterfly

29°C in Wellington right now.

I would guess around 3mm for that one. I’ve never seen them either but happened to look down and saw it crawling on me while gardening

I’m in Wellington, but they’re apparently everywhere - just we tend not to notice them since they’re pretty small and like live under leaves and stuff

I think those were Nadine potatoes if I recall correctly

Beginners luck on my part. They got absolutely flattened by the wind so I wasn’t confident of getting much of anything, but real happy with how my forays into growing stuff is progressing

Harvested potatoes this morning and was pleasantly surprised by the haul from my tiny plot. Gotta figure out what to plant in the space next - maybe some pumpkin

Merry Christmas everyone!

Did my first ever BBQ today, vege sausages for me and pork for the rest of the family. There were a few hiccups on the way but daughter said they were the best sausages ever so I think that’s $300 well spent.

Yeah I think we’re going to take our 8 yo later in the holidays as I think she’ll like it too.

Took my 4 year old to the Dinosaurs of Patagonia exhibition at The Papa this morning. It’s fucking spectacular. I wasn’t really expecting all that much from it, and it is fairly tame to begin with, but the final exhibits are pretty amazing. Kid loved it too.

Thanks, that’s solid advice. I put it together last night and it seems robust enough, so like you say if I can keep it clean and avoid rust it should last

I’ll probably just stick to the standard sausages and burgers to start with. I don’t eat meat myself, but the kids do, so probably won’t be doing anything too fancy.

I am intrigued with the idea of using it as a pizza oven though

I ended up getting a Charmate Corona as it was far cheaper than the equivalent Webber, and is probably all I need as a beginner

My son, after watching a YouTube video where the Paw Patrol had a barbecue competition, decided that we needed to also get a BBQ - I was inclined to agree. So this morning I’ve headed out and bought the family the finest mid-price kettle that mitre 10 has to offer.

Now I can spend the Christmas break subjecting my family to my sure to be mediocre attempts at BBQing.

Made gyoza for the first time tonight, turned out far better than I thought it would. Took a bit of prep work, but was far cheaper and tastier than the frozen stuff from the supermarket. Even got two thumbs up from the four year old, and the seven year old went back for seconds.

Yeah can see the flight history here: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/nz7004#32fad10f

Looks like it flew over the beehive about 2:49 (I think, site says 1:49 AM UTC) at about 950 ft up.

Wasn’t this by any chance? RNZAF farewell flight becomes most tracked in the world

Apparently it was flying low going over Parliament on its way down south.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention Zealandia when talking about the return of native birds to the capital. It’s large sanctuary in the city suburbs that’s completely surround by a 1.8 - 2.2m (6.2 - 7.2 ') predator exclusion fence. This area allows native birds a space to thrive without rat predation. It’s been so successful that threatened birds are growing in numbers and returning to areas outside of the sanctuary - good example being the Kaka (not an owl but still superb) which seem to growing steadily in number in my area.

I’m lucky enough to have Ruru in my back garden. While I rarely, if ever, see them I do often hear them gently hooting throughout the night, and I love them for that.

I’m way under qualified to comment on the efficacy of the rat poison drops, but my impression is that they are generally seen as a necessary evil in the fight to protect native wildlife. There’s definitely a fringe, but vocal, anti 1080 (the most prominent poison used) movement, but that’s less rooted in environmental concern and more on conspiracy theories: 1080 activism: Going down the conspiracy ‘wormhole’

It is worth noting that poison drops aren’t the only tool employed. There’s been some massive victories in the Wellington region using trapping to eliminate rats (and other pests such as stoats) from a large area of the capital: Rats, stoats and weasels eliminated from Miramar

There’s a good Tom Scott video on the efforts going on to remove rats from the Wellington region: This is “impossible”, but New Zealand is trying anyway