Images available on the pjf.id.au version of this journal.

The most time-consuming desert
I've long had an interest in edible plants. Most fruit and vegetables that are eaten in modern times require easy harvesting and good shelf-life. Most westernized consumers don't see anything beside these commercial crops. There are plenty of wonderful things out there that can be cultivated, or simply found growing wild if you know where to look for them.

I regularly use some of the more tasty of wild plants in my cooking. Fat-hen (Chenopodium album) is regularly cooked in omlettes; Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus), chickweed (Stellaria media) and pigweed (Portulaca oleracea) are fantastic in salads. There's even some wild artichoke thistles (Cynara cardunculus) growing in the area — these are delicious, although gloves are required for harvesting and preparation.

One of the most widespread of edible plants is blackberry nightshade (Solanum nigrum). The leaves are edible when cooked, but most importantly the tiny black berries are sweet, and can be happily eaten raw. Blackberry nightshade has almost a worldwide distribution, and a long history as a food plant.

Many people consider the berries of S. nigrum to be poisonous, probably because the plant shares some similar physical characteristics with deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), a plant which is thankfully not found in Australia. This caution is quite sensible: belladonna is very poisonous plant indeed.

This weekend Jacinta and I decided to try our hand at making blackberry nightshade mousse. This calls for a cupful of blackberry nightshade berries, and it should be noted that these things are tiny. Finding sufficient numbers was easy (our garden has a number of plants), but harvesting and preparation was an incredible amount of work.

I think that Jacinta and I easily spent over an hour just removing the stalks from the berries, just to get a single cup. I've come to believe that there must be a better way of doing this, possibly by using a coarse-grained seive.

Once the berries were prepared, making the mousse was really very simple and fast in comparison. Overall the result was definitely worthwhile; the mousse has a sweet and delicious fruity-berry flavour, and one cup of berries makes quite a lot of mousse.

Photographs are included on the pjf.id.au hosted version of this journal.

Snorkling
Went snorkling under Rye pier, looked at wetsuits and made friends with the lovely lovely staff at Aquatic Adventures, who were generous enough to let us use their changerooms. Would have loved to explore more of the pier than we did, but a forest of fishing lines made that too dangerous.

We had plenty of people on the pier interested on what was underneath, and we chatted somewhat about the local wildlife. Given that all one really needs is a mask and snorkle, I'm surprised more people don't go exploring their piers.

Trams
Discovered that Melbourne's tram stop displays run on Linux, as we caught one rebooting on the way home. Jacinta was fast enough to catch a photograph of an upside down Tux before the display clearly started-up Xwindows.

As an interesting aside, the rail displays in Sydney run on Windows, as we caught one after a blue screen of death the last time we were up there.

I have no idea why my presence causes public transport IT infrastructure to malfunction.

No free time
Up until about 5pm today my April calendar was surprisingly free. This is very rare. Normally having a free day or week is pretty amazing, let alone an entire month. I had planned to catch up on all those things that I consider overdue — the business paperwork, scuba equipment servicing, buying a wetsuit, harvesting wild plants, investment decisions, writing articles and courses, recreational programming, and a good deal of relaxation.

At 5pm a nice client called and asked if they could book me for the next four weeks. There's a few executive decisions that need to be made their end, but there's an excellent chance that it will go ahead.

The way I figure it is that I'm exchanging one month in return for sufficient funds for five perpetual days. Put another way, this potential month of work means I can five days a year less each year for the rest of my life. That's pretty good.

My next free period is in October, which we have been planning for a holiday since last year.

Higher Order Perl
MJD's new book, Higher Order Perl, has been published. MJ's page on the book recommends buying from Powells.com. It looks like this was a popular choice, as when I tried to place my order for a container of books I was informed that only three were left. Maybe it has something to do with the sale price they're offering.

Those three books are now due to arrive in Australia in a few weeks time, and two of them will probably go to lucky course attendees.

I'd love to find an Australian distributor for Higher Order Perl. While I've got the appropriate contacts for O'Reilly and Manning, I don't for Morgan Kauffman.

Paperwork
Another fun day of paperwork catchup. Invoicing, tax, the joys of running a small business. We're still behind in our investment decisions. Too busy making money to, uh, make more money.

Still, I much prefer having too much paperwork than too little. As long as I'm busy keeping tabs on all the invoices we're sending, I think that we're doing okay.

Journal
I had a colleague remark the other day on my journal; even though all blogs are drivel, this was drivel that he could relate to. While I was pleased that someone could relate to my writings (I guess everyone has to complete their tax), it did start me thinking about all the things that I don't write about. I feel that only the most boring of subjects actually reach the keyboard; everything else is either confidential, personal, bound under an NDA, loses value if publicly known, or sometimes even bordering on slanderous.

All the good things that won't get me sued, ostricised, or hospitalised end up as training materials, conference presentations, or short talks that are foisted upon whatever local Perl Mongers or technical groups happen to be nearby.

Day off
In theory I have tomorrow as a day off. Perhaps I should spend the time harvesting wild vegetables without a mobile phone, so I can actually take it. It should be mushroom season soon as well. Mmmm, wild mushrooms.