perkinsy

perkinsy, 4 hours ago to random

Today we went searching for koalas in the bush in the Otway Ranges. It reminded me of Michael Rosen's poem...

perkinsy, 1 day ago to australia

The culture of 'dropping in' has withered away in Australian cities in particular. Even before the pandemic it had waned, but the pandemic has really reinforced habits of social isolation.

How can we revive this act of friendship AND be considerate of the person we are dropping in on?

One thing I think is important is to first ask people if they are free for a visit.
#SocialIsolation #Australia

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-23/etiquette-of-dropping-in-to-friends-house/103852588

perkinsy, 1 day ago to random

We are spending a few days in the Otway Ranges. Today we went to the Cape Otway lighthouse. You can't go into the lighthouse at the moment because of a 'mercury spill'.

This is a photo of the coastline from the base of the lighthouse. There was no wind today and the sea was flat.

perkinsy, 1 day ago to melbourne

This Azalea is looking the best in years. The leaves are a healthy, rich green colour. Previously they had a paler mottled appearance. It is autumn, yet it has a couple of flowers. I am not a fan of the frilly, pink flowers of some varieties but I like these flowers.

This plant was given to me by my mother. I receive her excess and unwanted plants. She enjoys buying plants and I enjoy receiving her rejects - a good arrangement.
#Melbourne #GardeningAU

perkinsy, 4 days ago to environment

"The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea rules carbon dioxide is an ocean pollutant"
#environment #oceans #ClimateChange

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-22/un-maritime-court-rules-carbon-dioxide-is-a-sea-pollutant/103876578

perkinsy, 5 days ago to melbourne

Someone has stolen the salvia that was thriving in our street garden and covered in flowers for months. It has been carefully dug out.

One of our neighbours has given up on a nice front garden because of people stealing his plants. This is why I stick to nasturtiums and geraniums - free and easy to grow from cuttings or seeds. No-one wants to steal them.

#fuming

#Melbourne #GardeningAU

perkinsy, 7 days ago to melbourne

'Ditch the lawn' movement in southern Australia shows the benefits of removing the traditional patch of grass in front of homes and planting things that will attract birds etc.

My mother ripped up her front lawn in 1987 and again in her new place in 1993. At the time I thought it was strange but the results in both gardens convinced me that this was a great idea.

If we needed a place for our children to play we walked to a park

#GardeningAU #Melbourne

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-19/turf-lawn-grass-rewilding-biodiversity-native-gardens/103845840

perkinsy, 7 days ago to random

#SilentSunday

perkinsy, 8 days ago to melbourne

I am looking forward to running a meetup in #Melbourne next Thursday for technical writers and anyone involved in IT work. In it I will explore some fun activities that you can run with teams of engineers to help them improve their writing skills.

There's lego and games involved.

There is still space for you to come. We also would like to hear your ideas and experience in running activities to help people improve their writing skills.

Meetup details via Write the Docs Australia: https://meetu.ps/e/MVp4p/qhmHC/i

#TechnicalWriting #Writing #WriteTheDocs

perkinsy, 9 days ago to melbourne

Artificial turf is really bad for the environment and can heat up to 80 or 90 degrees on a sunny day adding to the heat of the house.

When we bought our house it had a backyard with artificial turf covering a large concrete pad. What can we do to cover the concrete with something better?
#GardeningAU #Melbourne

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-05/environmental-impacts-of-artificial-turf/102554018

perkinsy, 14 days ago (edited 14 days ago) to worms

Managed to do a fair bit of gardening today despite battling the start of a migraine (eventually thwarted by caffeine and rest in the afternoon). I repotted a blueberry plant that was in a way too small pot. I also repotted my $5 tubestock camellia I purchased recently.

My big success was finishing sieving my worms from their worm poo and therefore being able to retire one tray of my worm farm. It has taken me many hours over a few weekends to accomplish this because it is the first time I have done it and I didn't know what I was doing. Eventually with advice from @treevan and @earthmothering9 I got it and this morning I was much more efficient. This is what social media is so good for - sharing skills and experience as well as encouraging others.

So I cleaned up a worm tray and felt good!
#worms #vermiculture <- newly learned word for me :-)

perkinsy, 15 days ago to random

Australian children are missing out on learning music at school and out of school. Parents are cutting back as cost of living rises.

Learning to play music as a child is so important for people's well-being and enriches society.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-11/families-cutting-back-music-cost-of-living/103823896

perkinsy, 15 days ago to melbourne

This morning our gardening group gave away a lot of cuttings to a family nearby. We had been nurturing the plants over summer. We also gave away plants that my mother no longer wants.

Gardening can be an incredibly cheap hobby if you know a bit about plants. Many gardeners have piles of black plastic pots they no longer want and some plants like pelargoniums (geraniums) are easy to grow from cuttings. I pick up cheap potting soil from a supermarket as the easy to grow plants don't really care about what they grow in.

#GardeningAU #Melbourne

perkinsy, 21 days ago to melbourne

Day 3 of my quest to separate the worms from their castings and retire one bin of our worm farm. I have been following helpful advice from @treevan and @earthmothering9. This morning I bought a cheap sieve and have been pouring rain water through the castings to separate the worms and put them in the other tray.

To my annoyance I found that there was a bit of shredded plastic amongst the shredded paper we had been feeding the worms. I have been painstakingly fishing the plastic out as well as the worms.

I will get there! I am being slow and nitpicking doing this but that is my nature and it is better to get those personal qualities out on the weekend and in solitude rather than annoy people at work with them.
#GardeningAU #Melbourne #worms

perkinsy, 22 days ago to melbourne

My mother's garden in full autumnal colour: this morning I divided more clivias and planted the extra plants in the communal garden that lines a long path. I also pruned some Ivy geraniums and placed cuttings in the communal garden.

The body corporate does not have much of a gardening budget so we we are filling the big empty gaps beneath trees with plants that Mum can't fit in her garden. I follow the 'don't seek permission' principle but we both understand that if they don't like them then they can feel free to remove them.

After the working bee in Mum's garden last weekend there are fewer potted plants and the camellia in the foreground on the left (dark green leaves) is free of the jasmine that was covering the top of it.
#GardeningAU #Melbourne

perkinsy, 24 days ago to iPhone

IPhone users: it is not you. It appears that there is a problem with the iPhone alarm causing it to not make a sound when it goes off.

My daughter is standing outside waiting for an urgent Uber because she woke up late for work for the second time this week. She was feeling bad about herself sleeping through her alarm, but then I saw this article.
#iPhone #Apple

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kl4glp547o

perkinsy, 27 days ago to melbourne

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.
#GardeningAU #Melbourne

perkinsy, 1 month ago to worms

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.

#GardeningAU #worms #vermiculture

perkinsy, 1 month ago to environment

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, 1 month ago to australia

Only in Australia: "Hospital staff plead with bite victims to stop bringing snakes to emergency departments"
#Australia #snakes
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-22/bite-victims-warned-stop-bringing-snakes-to-emergency-department/103752506

perkinsy, 1 month ago to random

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, 1 month ago to melbourne

Report highlights affluent suburbs in well-resourced areas of Melbourne where more high-density and medium-density residences should be built. It highlights Boroondara in particular for hiding behind local laws that prevent such construction.
#Melbourne

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/17/housing-advocates-lga-boroondara-melbourne-inner-east-growth

perkinsy, 1 month ago to random

Australian states are introducing digital driver's licences but do not adhere to best standards in technical security.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-15/experts-call-for-stronger-security-standards-for-digital-id/103689806

perkinsy, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to melbourne

It has been a big gardening planning weekend. We are in peak autumnal gardening season after bunkering down during the hot, dry summer. My mother and I made a list of tasks to do. We are organising a working bee. Hopefully some interested neighbours and family will join us in a week or two.

This afternoon I surveyed our street garden. Lots of nasturtium seedlings have popped up after the big rain. I moved them to fill empty spaces. The earth that has been dry as dust over summer has now been replenished after the rain. The trowel sinks in easily.

I had a chat with a hospitality business owner who runs his business next to our house about our progress and planting strategy. He has put an application into the local council to get funds for planting on the street corners to deter rubbish dumpers.
#GardeningAU #Melbourne #StreetGarden

perkinsy, 1 month ago to australia

A very important question: How fast can a wombat run?
#Australia #wombat

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-04-13/how-fast-can-a-womat-actually-run-faster-than-usain-bolt/103648118