@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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perkinsy, to melbourne
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

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.

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

@melanie Gardening requires a lot of hope doesn't it?

I am nursing a rhododendron cutting that is probably 5 years old. It only grows during autumn. This year it has grown a couple of tiny shoots at the base (if you expand the photo you can just see them). I am looking forward to the year it flowers. It is a cutting from my mother's garden and has beautiful orange flowers (see the right-hand photo). It is a Vireya Rhodedendron 'Simbu Sunset'.

perkinsy, to australia
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

A man who was born in Australia, who has never left Australia and has Australian parents, unknowingly lost his Australian citizenship over 20 years ago because he applied for an Irish passport as he had Irish grandparents.

The government needs to change this law retrospectively as this could mean hundreds of thousands of Australians have unknowingly lost their citizenship.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-10/australian-citizenship-lost-due-to-section-17-law-repealed-2002/103829242

perkinsy, to random
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

Extraordinary error by Google Cloud causes major Australian superannuation to go offline: “Google Cloud CEO, Thomas Kurian has confirmed that the disruption arose from an unprecedented sequence of events whereby an inadvertent misconfiguration during provisioning of UniSuper’s Private Cloud services ultimately resulted in the deletion of UniSuper’s Private Cloud subscription,”

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/09/unisuper-google-cloud-issue-account-access

timrichards, to random
@timrichards@aus.social avatar

Oh god my flight's been delayed. In my experience, the more tired and desperate you are to get home, the higher the likelihood of your flight being delayed. [sigh]

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@timrichards I learned the hard way, never get an evening flight out of Brisbane in February. For a few years I would only work up there in February and get caught at the airport with flight delays caused by their afternoon/evening storms.

perkinsy, to random
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

Unfortunately perpetrators of domestic violence appear to be 'good blokes' to their mates and others who know them.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-07/afl-violence-against-women-stance-tarryn-thomas-brad-scott/103811342

perkinsy, to melbourne
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

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.

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

Back aching from bending over patiently sieving worm casts for bits of plastic, worms and worm cocoons. I am in the back yard having a cuppa amongst my pot plants.

In our small inner-urban back garden I don't have enough sunlight or garden bed space to plant all the plants I would like, so I have a collection of pots that I move around to catch the sun or avoid the sun, depending on the time of year.

I am also growing cuttings for our street gardening group. Our group met this morning and consulted on what we have coming up. We are hoping to give away the cuttings we nurtured over summer to residents living nearby. I have also picked up some plants my mother doesn't want, but I don't want them either, like the frilly pink camellia in this picture (grown from a $5 tubestock purchased about 5 years ago). I might see if I can find a new home for those plants too.

One of the members of our group has taken to naming his cuttings. He might find it a bit hard to give away 'Herby' so I suggested he keep it.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

The light failed so I finished the weekend's gardening work. I managed to repot and divide 3 gazania pots. I watered the lemon and lime trees as well as the gazanias with the worm castings that I had filtered through a sieve with rain water.

Last week I planted a geranium (pelargonium) which grows a couple of feet next to the garage. In front of that I planted a jasmine plant I grew from a cuttingnso that it can grow up the fence. Then on the street I planted a 'Big red' geranium that has a small bushy growth habit. Today on the other side of the garage I mirrored the planting of the previous week.

You can see the stump of a tree on the left. The builder planted a Cyprus on each side of the garage which predictably became nuisances in such small spots, so close to the building. The previous owner had them cut down but when we moved in a couple of years ago, they were sprouting. We poisoned them and waited. They have not sprouted for about a year and the wood is rotting, so now I am planting some more suitable plants.
#GardeningAU #Melbourne

This is the right side of the drive which mirrors the left side of the previous photo. Growing in front of the red bricks of the garage is a geranium. There is a jasmine plant in front of it but it is rather difficult to see it amongst the large, brown autumn leaves on the ground. Rather hidden by the leaves in the foreground is the stump of a tree.

gordonkerry, to random
@gordonkerry@mastodon.world avatar

Another bushfire

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@gordonkerry at this time of the year?

siftinsand, to random

Yeah it's time, my linguistic skills would be invaluable in the peloton if only I could bend my legs

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@siftinsand We are watching too. I watch these things as a virtual tourist, the views are stunning, the cycling adds a nice story line

perkinsy, to melbourne
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

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.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

I finished the day with working on the worm farm. I am fairly new at worm farming. This is the first time I have emptied a bin. The worms love their castings. Over the last couple of weeks I have been fishing out worms from the castings and putting them in the current tray we are using.

The photo shows me dealing with the last lot of castings. I have created little piles. The idea is tha the worms in each pile migrate to the bottom. I then scoop off the top and find the remaining worms left at the bottom which I can then add back to the current tray.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@earthmothering9 What a wonderful idea! I will try that. If you know that woman, please thank her for me.

chestas, to Tasmania
@chestas@aus.social avatar

We were doing a bit of gardening out the front of our house when we heard and saw some Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos in trees across the road. My wife went to check them out and took this photo of one flying away, with our house behind.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@chestas great photo!

perkinsy, to random
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

An indulgence for fans - ranking the top 20 Doctors:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/may/03/the-greatest-doctor-who-ranked

perkinsy, to random
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

How machine learning and other advanced technologies are transforming the reading of previously unread ancient texts.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/may/03/how-scholars-armed-with-cutting-edge-technology-are-unfurling-secrets-of-ancient-scrolls

perkinsy, to environment
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

"A Sumatran orangutan has become the first wild animal seen self-medicating with a plant to heal a wound."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-03/orangutan-uses-plant-for-medicine/103799228

perkinsy, to iPhone
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

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.

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

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@mativity I suspect that the problem will be with newer models or operating systems. Sometimes it is good to be behind

perkinsy, to australia
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

Ann Curthoys remembers Lyndall Ryan, the influential Australian historian who bore the brunt of the Australian History Wars in the early years of this century but responded with meticulous historical research and communication.

Her name and work is remembered. The other guy is forgotten.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/may/01/lyndall-ryans-impact-on-australian-history-research-will-be-felt-for-many-years-to-come

perkinsy, to australia
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

"It is not about you." This is the number one thing to remember for anyone wanting to assist victims of violence, harassment and prejudice of all kinds. Help, but stay off the stage unless invited. If invited, make it about the survivors and victims, not about you.

This is by far the best article I have read about the crisis of violence against women and the most recent faux pas of the Prime Minister (and a series of Prime Ministers). Annabel Crabb carefully examines the evidence, puts forward her arguments with clarity and ends with proposing a 'Women Keeper' budget increase to provide the funds and services to help women leave domestic violence.

And on a side note: I appreciate how she gently clarifies the meaning of 'misogyny' and distinguishes it from ineptness or tone-deaf behaviour.

Please take the time to read and consider this article

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-01/albanese-gendered-violence-rally/103785858

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.

richrollgardener, to gardening
@richrollgardener@toot.wales avatar

The tally so far in the potting-up marathon is as follows:
48 beefsteak tomatoes
12 SuperSweet 100 tomatoes
36 Moreton tomatoes
12 Jalapeño (Everman) peppers
48 King Arthur green bell peppers.

Next up: second planting of lettuces and potting on 48 eggplant seedlings.
Planting out of cabbages soon!





A ten inch tall, light brown teddy bear in green overalls sits looking directly at the camera. He is holding a beet in his right paw. There is a bunch of beets embroidered on the bib of his overalls. He sits in front of several dozen tomato plants on a greenhouse bench.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@richrollgardener What a lot of plants! You must have a very large garden.

perkinsy,
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

@richrollgardener It must keep you busy full-time!

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