iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Surprisingly pretty in blooms, for a plant that is hellbent on staving off all comers.

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Oh! On magnolias. Alas, paywalled so I can only see the first para.

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Mark's work on the yellow mags is pretty remarkable. I say that with much pride. Not at his end goal yet but it is clearly reachable, if not by him but by the next generation using his gene pool here.

Was it Gareth Winter on the Newsroom site? I read that. That was 2017, that video. Not that we ever made any progress on that issue but I feel vindicated as being on the right side of history. Magnolia breeding - Mark has selected and released 7 out of 1000s of seedlings. Painstaking indeed.

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Very pretty. Looks to be M. laevifolia.

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Sorting through the husband's breeding programme on yellow magnolias. This one shows that the end goal is achievable but not there yet. The flower is great but a bit small. The tree, however, is set to be of timber tree status - way too big for most gardens. I only show the rejects.

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That is A Lot. Our two grandies stand to benefit in many ways from their grandparents.

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They too had 3 children and I don't know how many grandchildren but they are now up to EIGHT great-grandchildren and the first GREAT GREAT grandchild is about to be born. I can't even comprehend that. Two and a half generations ahead of us. She won that competition hands down.

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We have 3 children and 2 grandchildren aged 3 and 10. That is likely to be the final total. Just had an acquaintance (more than a friend) who is maybe 5 year our senior, tell me her total, as though grandies are a competitive sport (cont)

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Are Labour running with Nationals 210 000 ghost jobs yet?

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Do we think he may be channeling Dorian Grey and intending to live forever?

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I think we may not have even started yet on classification of micro vehicles,registration, licensing, driver licensing, permissable road use, RUCs etc. Which seems an oversight.

Abbie Jury 🌱 @tikorangi.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Friend of mind in China recently commented on the huge range of micro evs there now.

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I heard fishing industry leaders bleating about how their fishing is SUSTAINABLE and world class this week. Tell that to the orange roughy and hoki!

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The dog is fairly confident he shot the possum.

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Thanks for the advice but 1) This a house with only .22s. 2) I think we would rather let nature take its course than starting cutting into the tree. Fortunately the garden is no longer open to the public so only us and the residents down the drive will see it. 3) Alas no resident children!

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I am always the person driving and one is in a spot with no room to pull over within considerable distance.

Somebody who presumably lives near Brixton or Whaitara, is posting stickers saying 'fascist scum' on Luxon's billboard face.

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He tried shooting it down last night but even being hit by two bullets after the fatal one failed to dislodge it.

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Unfortunately, when this one falls, it is likely to be VERY ripe. And Ralph, who does not like fresh possum, is drawn to them when they smell to high heaven.

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Abbie Jury 🌱 @tikorangi.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Houston, we have a problem. This is our driveway and the dog wants to know what Mark is going to do with the possum they shot last night.

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Will Pete Hegseth be encouraging knitters at the execution? Channeling the French guillotine folklore.

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Abbie Jury 🌱 @tikorangi.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Gardening ranked very highly in census stats as preferred leisure activity. And I recall an independent survey that ranked garden pages as more widely read than sports pages - can't recall if Taranaki or Waikato paper (I was the main garden writer). But an individual activity so easily ignored.

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Abbie Jury 🌱 @tikorangi.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Dear Louise Upstart, what jobs??! And Winston - do you support random alcohol testing for MPs? Or just testing for illegal drug use?

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Abbie Jury 🌱 @tikorangi.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

That is why I swapped to the Maori roll. TBF, Barbara is on the liberal side of the party and just a well-meaning, ordinary woman trying to do her best for her electorate. Lacklustre but you could stand a dog for Nats here and it would get elected. So vote for who you like best.

I am part of an extremely small, niche group of NZers who has never, ever watched an episode of Shortland Street. It has just never featured in my life.

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This does not surprise me. Another person who did not recognise when her time was up but was determined to hang on as long as she could in an increasingly autocratic style.

Mark does the possum fur beanie until it gets warm enough to swap to his broad brimmed sunhat.

Mark's dad favoured a tweed trilby. I had to replace his twice because he would nod off sitting on his footstool beside a one-bar heater and he fell onto the heater. I replaced the heater for a safer model, too.

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I do not let Him Here wear tartan slippers from No 1 Shoe Warehouse, which is New Zild grandfather style. Slippers have to be plain black or brown. And no tops with food stains. Ever. That is as high a grandfather dress code as seem attainable here.

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Parisian grandfather style! I am ded. NZ grandfather style is more ... slovenly no-style.

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The museum of skeletons and bones of monks and priests in Rome was bizarre. Like, rows of finger bones as well as entire skeletons. Actually all in a church crypt, from memory. Not many tourists there.

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Which would you rather slash to pay for more Pharmac meds? 1) Foreign aid to poverty stricken people and disaster areas 2) subsidies to Big Tobacco 3) subsidies to oil and gas companies 4) RONS 5) an LNG terminal

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Are we expecting National to re-announce another road of national significance today, then? To distract from Luxon last night.

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Lord save me from Chris Luxon's anecdotes.

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Abbie Jury 🌱 @tikorangi.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Waitara on Thursdays when the works were open. The stench was dire throughout the town.

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Friends, is it not fascinating to see Winston - a vastly experienced, cantankerous 81year old who doesn't know when to bow out - meeting his nemesis? Now a new kingmaker supplanting him - an articulate, much younger woman, who is visibly of Chinese descent. The horror. The horror.

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That is a very different visual to that which TVOne chose to portray.

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Snap. I was just about to comment herd on what a condescending twatLuxon is.

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I have enough selfseeded parsley to be able to make parsley and walnut pesto all year round.

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Also, I am usually battling rabbits nipping the tops off all my lilies as they break ground. Or maybe rabbit, singular, because nothing is eating them this year. I will not weep for the offender if it is no more. Blood and bone deters rabbits but has to reapplied after rain.

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Oh, I thought to myself, I wonder if there is any fresh coriander to go with my virtuous and cheap cauliflower and cannelloni bean curry. And there was. I just let it seed down in the raspberry cage which is pretty weed-free.

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