@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

perkinsy

@perkinsy@aus.social

Writer (technical writing, blogging at stumblingpast.com), digital history, owner of #OfficeKitty (see profile pic). Enjoys gardening in #Melbourne #Australia

Interests:#OzHist #DigitalHumanities #documentation #WriteTheDocs #GardeningAU #Environment and watching a bit of cricket on TV.

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thegardendude, to random

Sometimes those discount plants at the nursery really turn into something given a second chance, like this Japanese maple I brought home and gave to my mom. I forget what was wrong with it at the time, but you wouldn't know it now.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@thegardendude Wow - that was a great buy!

I bought a half-dead geranium for $5. Regular pots of the variety were selling for $25 at the time. It quickly came back to life with a bit of water. Then I took cuttings and gave the cuttings away to friends and neighbours. Those cuttings have grown into plants that line 2 streets in 2 suburbs in Sydney, thrive in a street garden in Melbourne and a firmly established in my mother's garden and producing more cuttings.

perkinsy, to Tasmania
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

The battle of the bins has been won. The penguin bins have triumphed in a small Tasmanian town whose most significant feature is the Big Penguin and the second most significant feature is its rubbish bins.
#Penguin #Tasmania #RubbishBins

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-30/penguin-themed-bins-saved-tasmania/103778624

perkinsy, to melbourne
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

Yesterday we had our working bee in my mother's garden. One of my mother's neighbours joined my husband and I and we spent several hours pruning, planting, mulching and chatting. It was lovely for Mum as she had different people to chat with while we were working.

We planted or moved around 25 plants in the garden beds that had been reshaped by the path my brother recently made. Things we planted included camellia, canna, clivia, mondo grass, succulents. Mum's neighbour spent about an hour on a ladder carefully removing jasmine that was covering a large camellia. We filled a green wheelie bin with prunings.

I potted up some geranium, cornea, abutilon and jasmine cuttings that Mum can look after.

I don't have any photos other than this one I took before we started.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

We finished with some more good conversation while eating scones, jam and cream I cooked. Mum and I had Chai Latte that I made. Mum's neighbour went home with potted cuttings.

We left around 2pm, rushed home to get changed and hang out the clothes before going to a friend's place for Ridvan celebrations. As these celebrations are about what occurred in a beautiful garden in 1863, I took some geranium cuttings to give children to plant when they got home. I have written about Ridvan and gardening in this article: https://www.bahaiblog.net/articles/holy-days-bahai-calendar/celebrating-ridvan-garden/

perkinsy, to random
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

Do you still use a disposable cup for your daily coffee?

"6.5m trees are cut down every year to produce the 16bn paper cups used globally. The KeepCup impact calculator estimates that drinking just three coffees a week in a reusable coffee cup saves 5.5kg of CO2e. It would also save half a kilo of plastic and 150 coffee cups."
#coffee #environment

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2024/apr/27/how-to-ditch-disposable-cups-and-transform-the-way-you-enjoy-coffee

perkinsy, to melbourne
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

Newly built, 'affordable housing' development in Ascot Vale that was opening in March last year has residents forced to use buckets to flush toilets and numerous other building faults.
#Melbourne #housing

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/27/its-not-the-19th-century-tenants-in-new-social-housing-block-in-victoria-say-they-go-weeks-without-flushing-toilets

perkinsy, to melbourne
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

Had a good gardening day today. In the afternoon I planted a tall-growing geranium cutting outside the garage, a jasmine cutting next to it which will grown up the fence to the front door and on the street side next to the short drive I planted a 'Big red' geranium cutting that has a spreading compact growth pattern.

Each plant I had grown from cuttings in pots last year so they all had good root structures. By next summer I hope they will be well-established and hopefully they will survive the hot, aftoon western sun.

My husband and I dug out weeds on the opposite side of the garage. I have another set of potted cuttings I can plant there when I have time in a few days.

When we first moved in 2 and a half years ago there were two conifers planted foolishly close to the drive and house which had been cut down but were still sprouting. We had to poison them and wait until they had well and truly died. The bases of these trees are now rotting away nicely. Every few months we are able to cut away more of the cut-down trunks.

I also planted coriander seeds and a clover mix in a part of the garden with poor quality soil. I had saved a dried, okd oak-leaf hydrangea flower head in a paper bag. I shook some of the seeds into a couple of punnet. Let's see what happens with them!

It is so nice that we are now having mild weather with good rain making gardening feasible again.
#Melbourne #GardeningAU

perkinsy, to worms
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

It is a public holiday here and peak gardening season. This morning I did a lot of work on our worm farm. I had retired the bottom bin 3 months ago and have been only feeding the top bin. We have a lot of worms and some migrated up. They have eaten a lot of stuff in the top bin including all the shredded paper I had put in there.

However, there are still heaps of worms in the bottom bin that are not migrating up. I was puzzled. What were they feeding on?

As I pulled worms out from the bottom bin by hand this morning (spent about an hour doing it), I felt solid material amongst the worm paste. There were still remnants of corn cobs in there. I also found a couple of partially digested tea bags. No wonder they are still happy there.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

I am wondering whether I should buy another tray for the worm farm? #vermiculture

I removed some of the pasty, worm waste from the bottom bin, carefully removing worms as I did so. However, our worms seem to be having lots of babies and they are tiny so I am not convinced that I have removed all the worms.
#worms

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

We paid a bit more to get a worm farm that was light and can be kept indoors as well as out. During the summer it is too hot for worms outside so we have it next to our kitchen on a plastic mat. It is good that the weather has cooled down so we can now keep it outside. Regular worm farm maintenance can get messy.
#Melbourne #vermiculture

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@treevan Thank you for sharing this. I am new at worm farming. What do you recommend I do with the worm poo - let it rest? Mis it with something before putting it in the garden?

perkinsy, to environment
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

Australia's only native deciduous tree, Nothofagus gunnii, is now in its autumnal livery in Tasmania.
#environment #Australia #Tasmania

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-25/tasmania-cold-climate-deciduous-tree-fagus-golden-colours/103757198

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@Nigel_Purchase Thanks for sharing that. We will be visiting the Otways soon so I will look out for it

timrichards, (edited ) to melbourne
@timrichards@aus.social avatar

Oh dear, she's started drinking cappuccinos. Exile from the inner-city is the logical next step.

I live in Brunswick East and drink flat whites. Now I’m engaged in a sordid affair

(maybe paywalled) #Melbourne #Coffee https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/i-live-in-brunswick-east-and-drink-flat-whites-now-i-m-engaged-in-a-sordid-affair-20240424-p5fm9m.html

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@timrichards A Melbourne article shared through a Sydney URL so the statistics will show that the Sydney paper is more 'successful' than the Melbourne paper.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@timrichards I would do that too years ago when I was still reading the paper.

Sheril, to random
@Sheril@mastodon.social avatar

As an undergrad, I sent one of my biology professors a thank you card at the end of the semester bc I really enjoyed his class. He was a plant guy & it had a smiling sunflower on it with a text box that said “Thanks.”

At the time, I remember worrying he would think it was a weird thing to do.

25 years later, now sitting on the other side of things, I’m really glad I did that bc I’d be delighted to be on the receiving end.

Always let people know what their contribution means to you.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@Sheril I sent a thank you email to a history lecturer the following year telling her how I was helping 3rd year geography students learn concepts she had taught in her history class. I also noted the value of the seminal text that I constantly referred back to.

She wrote back saying how much it meant to her and the author of that text. She had been having a horrible week and my email had really lifted both her and the author of the text who she shared my comments with.

I have remembered her response and try to apply it in my workplace. The other day someone I didn't know in another team wrote a fantastic PR description. She clearly out a lot of time and effort into it. I wrote and thanked her. Coincidentally we met in person at an event the following week. That email gave us instant rapport.

Sending people a meaningful, albeit brief, thank you message helps everyone have a better day.

perkinsy, to australia
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

Only in Australia: "Hospital staff plead with bite victims to stop bringing snakes to emergency departments"

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-22/bite-victims-warned-stop-bringing-snakes-to-emergency-department/103752506

perkinsy, to australia
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

Wahgunyah, the country footy team that became famous for losing, records a famous win:
#AussieRules #australia

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-21/wahgunyah-records-famous-first-win-in-years/103749700

perkinsy, (edited ) to random
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

#SilentSunday #Camellia

perkinsy, to australia
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

The effects of a 'grey divorce' can be severe for women over 50. It is soooo important that women of any age are actively engaged in their personal finances when they are in a relationship. Lack of financial literacy can have devastating consequences for women if they go through a divorce at an older age.

I have seen this personally amongst my friends who have been devastated by a 'grey divorce' or are unknowingly suffering from financial abuse in their relationship.

BUT, we should not blame women for coming out so much worse off from a divorce. What kind of system allows divorce settlements that have such devastating financial consequences for women? I have also seen financially literate women who were active in the workforce throughout their marriage coming out of a divorce with terrible financial consequences.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-21/grey-divorce-a-significant-financial-risk-on-women-research/103740646

perkinsy, to gardening
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

I wrote this article a few years ago to explain my approach to gardening and how it ties in with the Baha'i calendar.

Today is the first day of a Baha'i festival called the Festival of Ridvan. It celebrates momentous events in a beautiful garden called Ridvan (paradise in English) in 1863. It is celebrated by Baha'is all around the world. During this 12-day festival I do a lot of gardening work.

https://www.bahaiblog.net/articles/holy-days-bahai-calendar/celebrating-ridvan-garden/

perkinsy, to random
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

Today my husband added three new shelves to our food cupboard and we bought some clear plastic boxes to store the food on the shelves. It is a narrow but deep cupboard so things get lost at the back of the shelves. With the plastic boxes we can pull everything out very easily and see the contents.

The new shelves and efficient organisation means we can store a lot more in the cupboard. To our surprise after we finished the sorting we had an almost empty shelf in the middle of the cupboard.

We used a label maker to properly label our spice jars.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

We also discovered some ridiculous excess bags of spices. I would never use this much cayenne pepper in 10 years! We have paprika, hot paprika, sweet paprika and smoked paprika. I rarely use paprika in my cooking. I use cinnamon but we have a ridiculous amount so will try to give away this bag.

Who would want this quantity of cayenne pepper? A restaurant?

We now have a SYSTEM for organising and using herbs and spices in an orderly fashion. I warned my husband that many, many people have set up systems for storing and using herbs and spices but when you ask them how's it going a few years later, often they look crest-fallen because herbs and spices (aka as other family members) have minds of their own and will NOT be organised for long!

But we seize life's challenges with optimism. We will not let herbs and spices bring disorder to our cupboard again!
#kitchen #cooking

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@earthmothering9 Thank you! This will not happen again for a few years and it is almost certain to never look like this again, so I thought I would take some photos for posterity.

perkinsy, to melbourne
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

"Perhaps this winter, I will be brave enough to tame the insolent garden that taunts me" - Virginia Trioli's ode to her gardening inadequacies as the season has abruptly turned from summer to autumn and winter approaches.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-20/virginia-trioli-autumn-is-here-and-my-winter-garden-woe-returns/103744476

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