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Robin Pens Nonsense #UseAltText 🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇺🇦🇵🇸
@robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
1.9K followers 1.6K following 4.1K posts
I've given up teh fight against typos. Deal w/ it.

Multiply disabled GenX Cdn.

Not as interesting as I used to be, but I can still keep myself entertained.

Equality; UBI; gardens, seed saving; books; houseplants; art; music; writing; cooking.

#Resist
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robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
November's reads and ratings so far. If I tend to rate most books highly, it's because I have a big DNF pile. I don't finish books that I wouldn't rate highly. There are far too many good books to read to waste time on the ones that don't spark something in me.

#BookSky
#WhatI'mReading
Image from StoryGraph: robinpensnonsense's November 2025 Reads Four columns featuring six book covers and my rating of each title. Column 1: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, by Isabel Wilkerson (5 stars) Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler (4.25 stars) Column 2: Pigeon Pie Mystery, by Julia Stuart (3.0 stars) *side note: read The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by this author instead Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret, by Benjamin Stevenson (4.0) side note: I really enjoyed this and it hot all the right notes for a cosy Christmas murder mystery, it might warrant a higher rating Column 3: The Framed Women or Ardemore House, by Brandy Schillace (3.75) Column 4: The Spy and the Traitor, by Ben MacIntire (5 stars) side note: one of my favourite books of the year, highly recommend!
November 16, 2025 at 5:22 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
🌱 This is my Philodendron billietiae. Its leaves can grow 2 to 3' long. The last new leaf was 7" rolled and hardened off to just a squeak past 9". Click the pic. This new one is 9" rolled! If this one gets to 10" once matured, I bet this plant gets its first foot long leaf by Christmas!

#PlantSky
A metal ruler held beside a rolled up lead of a Philodendron billietiae, growing from a pink-orange petiole, with several other petioles in the background and leaves of a few plants. The measured leaf from tip to tip is nearing 9½ inches long. This is exciting, as it will continue to grow significantly as the new leaf hardens off. The last two leaves came in around 7" and grew to 9-ish", so we're expecting this one to reach 10 or 11 inches. Fully mature, the Philodendron billietiae produces leaves of 1 to 2 feet long. The goal is to fall in that range this time next year.
November 11, 2025 at 10:49 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
Well, my crow friends are getting a treat in the morning. I grabbed their peanut butter instead of mine by accident when I made cookies this evening. They sit outside of my window in the morning and call to me until I open the blinds and say hello with food.
A very beige photo of a dozen nearly perfect, dome topped, soft peanut butter cookies on a pan, baking in a toaster oven.
November 10, 2025 at 3:04 AM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
Roasting? Pfft! I am only 4 years away from harvesting my own beans.
Large pot of five or six healthy 1 year old coffee plant seedlings.
November 4, 2025 at 5:17 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
I've kept sourdough starter since 2014-ish. I took it out of the fridge to feed it and found mould (eek). I am so thankful to past me for dehydrating a big ol' bag o' "back-up" for trying times like these.

Dehydrate some of your starter, friends! You might thank yourself in the future.

#Sourdough
A battered store brand zip seal bag flat, beige chips of dehydrated sourdough starter, beside an empty canning jar, on a brown wooden table. The dehydrated sourdough starter is a great safety net in case anything happens to your active starter. It's great to have on hand, and instead of waiting a week or two for the next bake, this stuff will be ready on two days. Maybe three. Plus, it keeps your tried and true sourdough genetics protected. You can grow another starter, but it won't likely be as good as your established starter right away. It's also super convenient to share this way, though when I share dehydrated starter, I dry a thinner layer than pictured and then pulse it in the blender first.
November 3, 2025 at 10:51 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
🌱 I know it doesn't look like much at the moment, but my philodendron billietiae is beginning to push out its very first new leaf since I brought it home!

I'm so excited!

#PlantSky
#PhilodendronBillietiae
#NewGrowth
Close-up of many pinkish-orange petioles, and in the center, the very tip of a new pink leaf is emerging from the folds of the new growth sheath. I'm not sure what the proper term is, but I can't think of a word that better describes it than "sheath" - anyway, I'm not sure how much the leaf will grow in size before it fully emerges, but at the moment, it does not look like it will beat the 9" leaves on it now. We shall see.
September 27, 2025 at 9:49 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
🌱 One day this plant will have leaves two or three feet long, and I'm going to do an update tagging this picture of my baby philodendron billietiae for comparison. We will all marvel at the stunning growth.

The biggest leaves are at 9" currently.

#PlantSky
#PhilodendronBillietiae
#Philodendron
Long, narrow strappy leaf; bright green, with yellow-green veins and orangy-pink edge, resting on a metal ruler measuring 9 inches. Philodendron billietiae in small white pot on striped floor mat, small countertop hydroponic grow components on floor in the background. The plant has four or five larger leaves, between 7 and 9 inches long, and many more baby leaves below, not all visible.
September 20, 2025 at 11:48 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
🌱 I recently went to a plant swap and my new leafy friends are now out of quarantine. Yay! These are a few of them.

To give my plants the best chance of surviving the winter, many are going into community pots.

Plant details in alt text.

#PlantSky
#Repotting
#PlantChores
Several plants and cuttings in two plastic bins on the floor awaiting transplant. Plants include rattlesnake calathea, n'joy pothos, two deifenbachias, a dark red begonia, a couple spider plants from the swap, and some red prayer plant cuttings from a mother plant of mine. Ta-da! The finished pot! Planter is cobalt blue with a round bottom and a squared top. All of these plants, minus the red maranta are from the plant swap. Back left is a rattlesnake calathea that was not living it's best life, but that's going to change here. Calatheas and I get along. Back right are top cuts of two different deifenbachias, and one bare stem cutting. Left, midground is pothos N'Joy; middle is rex begonia black sky; mid-right are two small spiderplants, each with teeny, tiny babies. Foreground, several cuttings red maranta.
September 18, 2025 at 11:05 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
🌱 Hey, plant people. It's been three months since I did an Alocasia Stingray update. There has been a lot of growth.

I moved them from their lettuce container to a pot a few months ago and they're loving life!

For full view and details, click image and check alt text.

#StingrayAlocasia
#PlantSky
Today I dug for alocasia corms and repotted my stingray alocasias. I emptied the contents of the nursery pot into a bus pan. Image shows pot-shaped clump of soil with many plants emerging from the top, laying on it's side in a white plastic bin. The plants have shiny, green stingray shaped leaves. I loosened the soil, separated the plants and removed all corms I could find, before repotting. Six smallish alocasia stingray plants in a white pot at the center of the image. At the top, behind the alocasias is a big round white-striped green leaf of a calathea orbifolia, and in the foreground (bottom of image) is a small glass dish with two tiny alocasias with leaves the size of a dime, and unseen are six fresh corms planted in the same dish. I love these plants so much and I cannot wait for spring already to see how they take off when the growing season starts again!
September 18, 2025 at 8:56 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
If you click on the image and read the alt text, I will explain how you can add alt text to make your posts more accessible. :)

(I went over the character limit for alt text, for those who need it, I'm posting it under this comment.
Screenshot of original post image opened on Android photo editor. To extract text from your image, click the yellow "T" in grey circle, then copy the text to the clipboard. What you get when you do that is shown below. Sometimes you may need to edit spacing for clarity, but other than that, it's all done for you and ensures folks who need glasses, but can't afford them, who are blind/ low vision, or who have poor internet connections so images won't load will also be able to access the info you're sharing. I hope this is helpful and you'll add alt text to future posts. Okay, for those who need alt text to access this post, here it is: The Honourable Peter Bethlenfalvy Ministry of Finance 95 Grosvenor Street Toronto, Ontario M7A 1Y8 RE: Protecting Ontario Account July 21, 2025 Dear Minister Bethlenfalvy, Catherine Fife MPP Waterloo Ontario Jessica Bell MPP University- Rosedale We are writing to seek urgent clarification regarding the Protecting Ontario Account and the supports it is intended to provide to struggling businesses across the province. We appreciate the intention behind the fund and support the objective of providing businesses with critical support to protect jobs, transform businesses, and grow strategic sectors of the economy that are facing significant tariffrelated business disruptions. However, as the Official Opposition Leader's Advisory Council on Tariff Response and Economic Security has met with businesses and stakeholders across Ontario, they have raised questions about this Account that we would like to clarify with you directly AS you are aware, businesses throughout Ontario, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, are facing unprecedented challenges. Many are still recovering from the lasting impacts of the pandemic, while others are grappling with high inflation, labour shortages, and increasing operational costs. This is all compounded by the US-imposed tariffs and the uncertainty that they have created.
August 13, 2025 at 6:06 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
🌱 I cannot believe I forgot to take a picture of my coffee plants when I bought them in April!

The first picture shows a few seeds just sprouting about a month after I bought the plants. The second is all of the plants I bought, originally in 2 pots, transplanted into 9 pots.

#PlantSky
#Coffee
I purchased two pots of coffee plants in April. Most were seedlings that appeared to be about six months old. Image shows three seedlings in pot, one has fully shed its seed shell but the emerging leaves are still folded up and stuck together, one has half emerged from its seed shell, and the third has just the tiniest bit of leaf peeking out of the shell. Multiple mature leaves from larger seedlings, probably six months old, fill in the background. Nine pots containing 17 coffee seedlings in various stages of growth, from five to ten months, based on growth, grouped on a wooden table. The leaves are mostly bright, rich, green, and glossy. A few leaves are browning at the tips. I went away for a few days, and the plants dried out and weren't happy about it. These were all transplanted in early May and are all almost ready to be transplanted again. In the fall, the plants will be divided between two or three large pots for overwintering. I have trouble with my plants in the winter, but they do much better when I plant several together. I tend to over water smaller pots once growth slows in winter, so multiple plants in bigger pots have better survival rates in my care.
August 12, 2025 at 2:06 AM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
I beat my goal! I'm going to try for 75 now. :)
StoryGraph screenshot of 2025 reading goals. 2025 Reading Goals You have read 51 books this year. BOOKS 51/50 books 102% Goal exceeded by 1 book.
August 10, 2025 at 10:33 AM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
Three bean salad with garlicky red wine sesame vinaigrette ready to chill out in the fridge to marinate and blend all those flavours!

Thanks for the inspiration @fishfeast.bsky.social!
Three bean salad in a glass bowl. This salad includes canned chickpeas (or garbanzo beans), white beans, and kidney beans; chopped red onion, tomato, and cucumber. Dressing is olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, toasted sesame seeds, salt, and pepper. I just realized I forgot to add red and yellow peppers. Dang it!
August 8, 2025 at 6:10 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
🌱 Another favourite plant almost lost this year: Silver Sword #Philodendron

This beauty was 2 1/2 tall before the stem began to liquefy and turn black. More and more had to be cut back until all that was left was a stub the size of a finger with a few roots attached. Now look at it!

#PlantSky
Silver sword philodendron growing in a white square pot, with a plant label on a stick displaying the plant name. Laying on the soil is a brown, slightly gnarled stem with a shoot growing out about two-thirds of the way up. The first leaf on the new shoot is small and roundish. The next two are lance shaped but do not have the leaf lobes that a fully mature plant would produce. That's what gives it a more sword-like appearance because the lobes sort of resemble the cross-guard. There is also a partially unfurled leaf, looking a twisty mess, and another one about to emerge. It's not easy to see at this angle, but at the tip of the brown stem is a newly emerging growth point, so it should put out a new leaf, which means this will now have two main stems! Originally, there was one main stalk.
August 6, 2025 at 11:32 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
🌱 It's been too long since I did a PlantSky post. The little seedling emoji isn't even in my recently used anymore.

Here's an update on my Alocasia Stingrays. I started with three corms sprouting. Then four. Now there are seven! All alive and doing well.

#PlantSky
#StingrayAlocasia
The three small alocasia plants that had sprouted in the lettuce container and the one I moved from a mixed plant planter box have been transplanted into the original pot the mother stingray alocasia was growing in, which had sprouted another three corms. Now there are seven small plants with anywhere from three to six leaves each. Image focuses on white planter filled with multiple baby alocasias. All of the leaves are bright green and bathed in sunlight, but for one yellowing leaf, wilted near the soil surface. From left to right, eaves of pepperomia Frost, calathea orbifolia, and monstera Ginny, can be seen behind the alocasias. These plants generally don't hold more than 5 leaves at a time and while this small, they put out new leaves rapidly, so it is perfectly normal for healthy growing plants to have the older leaves yellowing and dying off as new growth comes in. I am so thrilled these plants are doing so well. As I'm sure no one remembers, I was devestated at the loss of the mother plant. I'm so glad I am an obsessive soil re-user. All these corms sprouting unexpectedly have been an absolute delight!
August 6, 2025 at 10:52 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
Tea time!
Then, bedtime.
A cup of black tea on a saucer with pink and yellow roses sits on a metal tray with a stainless steel tea pot and a little milk pitcher. On the table beside the teacup is a sugar dish.
August 6, 2025 at 1:41 AM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
Also, Gift Links and Gift Articles exist and you can fund almost every story from every angle posted there.
BlueSky screen shot, black background, white text. BlueSky butterfly at top of image followed by link, which I boxed off in magenta, that says, "Gift Links/Gift Articles" Below the link is the post I am commenting on. It says, "Tom Nichols @radiofr... 3m Folks, I post almost all of my stuff here without a paywall soon after publishing."
June 22, 2025 at 4:14 AM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
I made chocolate iced espresso brownies and brewed a big pot of coffee, so that's my day set: Me, a pan brownies, a pot of coffee, and my D&D notes and books to finish up writing this one-shot for my first-time players.

I'm excited to be introducing them to this world!

#Dungeons&Dragons
#D&D
A clutter of items on an old wooden table. At the top is shown the very edge of the brownie pan and the glass bowl of icing. The upper part of the image shows a rose-covered mug of coffee, with a spoon in it; a small dish containing two irregularly shaped pieces of brownie torn from the pan and spread with homemade whipped chocolate-coffee icing. In the foreground, there is a clipboard resting on the Dungeon Master's Guide, with the Monster Manual to the right. The paper on the clipboard has two maps sketched out, one of a simple hedge maze with various chests and encounters, the other of a basic tavern where another encounter will take place. I am actually working on three interconnected one-shots for the same players. The tavern will be included in each, but it is not the meeting point or start point in any. Atop the clipboard are two pencils, a pair of black framed reading glasses, and a Cotton Candy Mints tin, which houses my pencil sharpener and shavings so I don't have to get up and go to the trash every time I obsessively sharpen my pencils.
June 13, 2025 at 4:16 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
🌱 Update on Alocasia Stingray babies: They are still alive and thriving!

Details in alt text.

#PlantSky
#StingrayAlocasia
Focus on a single Alocasia Stingray leaf that is beginning to take on the very distinct stingray shape, with several more leaves in the background. The leaves will continue to mature, and as they do, the current deep cut heart shape with a long tail will broaden out and the main part of the leaf will look less like a heart and more like the sea creature it takes it's name from. We can see this beginning to happen here as the sides of the heart are beginning to bulge out slightly. The tails will also become significantly longer. I am so wildly pleased with their progress and survival! The three original baby Alocasia Stingrays are doing nicely. I had one growing in another pot, months older, that never grew more than one leaf. I moved it to the lettuce container green house with the others, and now it's almost caught up to the others in growth, with three little leaves, compared to the four leaves on each of the others. Alocasia Stingray plants usually hold 3 to 6 leaves at a time. The three original lettuce container plants all have a fifth leaf emerging and the first leaf dying off. The two plants in the foreground have each a small withered, yellow leaf flopped on the soil at the plants base. These plants also have cool leaf stalks which are light green with purple splotches. While all four plants display this to some degree, it is most noticeable in the front plant, which is also the largest. At the far left of the lettuce container are two Pepperomia Rosso leaves set into the soil, with several tiny new leaves emerging from behind each. This is all that I have left from the beautiful mother plant that died in my care. I did manage to send a little pot of Rosso babies to another plant person in my community before I completely lost the mother plant, which are doing nicely in their new home.
June 10, 2025 at 6:34 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
I am so proud of what I have achieved with this year's reading goal!

I'm getting better at not comparing with my past self (who could have smashed 50 books by Valentine's Day, if pressed). I'm not that person anymore, and that's okay.

For those counting, what are you at so far this year?

#BookSky
Screenshot from my StoryGraph account, white text on black background with green progress bar Top line shows: Challenges Browse Archive Main body shows: Heading: 2025 Reading Goal Followed by: 50 books (with a green progress bar below) 62% (31 books) Brilliant! You are ahead by 10 books! (End of screenshot description) Two of the books were re-reads, many were just because they were what I happened to have available free or low cost, almost all were enjoyable reads, even if not necessarily "my thing". I thought about resetting my goal to something higher, but instead, I've added a StoryGraph Reading challenge and have completed 1 of 5 reading tasks for it. I used to read 10 to 25 books a month a long time ago, but somehow, it all slipped away, and I hadn't read much to speak of for a long time. In 2020, I started reading here and there (physical books). By 2022, I was a regular reader again, relying more on audiobooks for my reading. Last year, I visited the library often and upped my physical book and digital book reading and kept my audiobooks at about the same pace. This year, I am trying to read more physical books because I own so many that deserve to be read!
June 2, 2025 at 8:45 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
Today's thriftstore kitchenware haul!

#Thriftstore
#Vintage
Multiple thriftstore finds sitting on a kitchen counter. Items fill the frame: Background: Vintage Pasabahce Borcam Rectangular Casserole Dish; silver plated serving dish with glass casserole insert. Now I have to invite someone over for lasagna. Covered round PYREX casserole dish, made in France, already has someone's name written on the dish and the cover, so perfect for potlucks. Revere Ware 1.5-quart stainless steel saucepan with a copper-clad bottom, no lid, but that's okay. It was a single purpose purchase: this is the caramel pot, the pot I will only make caramel in. I will be eating more ice cream, thanks to this purchase. Midground: Palm Restaurant metal tea pot, now I can make one pot of tea in the morning, instead of three. Cast metal fruit/ apple peeler, green with wooden handle, and vacuum suction base. Tiny crystal salt shaker with silver top and original maker's sticker (faded), I found this at the bus stop after leaving the last thrift shop, but there were no people around. Might set a table for the fairies and put this on it, it case they want it back. Cast illuminum Ever-Wear citrus juicer, now I don't have to go to the food truck for a big jug of fresh-squeezed lemonade over ice - I probably *will* but I won't have to. Stainless steel peppermill, heavy weight, nice handfeel. Foreground: Vintage wooden handled bottle opener that every Maritimer's Grampy or Pappy had in the 70s/ 80s. Two aluminum cookie cutters, one club, one diamonds (now I must find the heart and spade and learn how to play Bridge). Stainless steel doughnut cutter. I already have one somewhere, but who knows where exactly? Not I.
May 30, 2025 at 11:25 PM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
Some of today's thrift shop haul! I'm so excited!

#BookSky
#ThriftShopFinds
Three tall stacks of books on a wooden kitchen chair. Only two titles are visible. On the left, the top of the stack is called Ideas of Heaven by Joan Silber. The middle stack shows a blue hardcover without the dust jacket. The right stack is topped with a book called People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry. These comprise most of the 49 books I picked up today for myself and to share with family members, who are also avid readers. Today's rate was $10 a bag, and I selected three bags worth of books. I'm going to have to start reading faster and giving away more books.
May 16, 2025 at 12:28 AM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
Walked to the water and there were so many great blue herons lined up, I momentarily thought someone put out buoys or markers. Nope. Just EIGHT great blue herons getting supper in the setting sun! These are two of them.

#AtlanticCanada
#Maritimes
#GreatBlueHeron
A calm ocean with ripples devides the surface of the ocean into alternating bands of silvery-blue and yellow-orange water. Two great blue herons stand near to each other, looking away from each other. Their silhouetted forms are reflected on rhe surface of the water. It is a peaceful scene. It gives a sense of quiet and calm.
May 14, 2025 at 12:41 AM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
Trading Places, part II

Blue Herons at sunset.

#AtlanticCanada
#Maritimes
#GreatBlueHeron
The approaching heron takes a turn to the right and the wading heron takes flight, it's wings raised high and legs coming out of tge water. The approaching heron begins to land, wings up anc feet extended, and the heron started into flight spreads it's wings and pulls up it's feet. The startled heron is gone, and the approaching heron is abour to break the surface of the water to land.
May 14, 2025 at 12:31 AM
robinpensnonsense.bsky.social
Trading places, part I

Blue herons at sunset.

#AtlanticCanada
#Maritimes
#GreatBlueHeron
A lone blue heron, silhouetted against the glassy water, it's reflection mirrored on a silvery ocean, coloured slighlty by the orange setting sun. The lone blue heron raises it's head as a second heron flies in over blue waves toward it, from behind. The approaching heron's wings are spread and on a downward flap. The heron wading in the foreground holds it's body very erect. Both birds are mirrored on the blue and silvery-orange surface of the calm water.
May 14, 2025 at 12:27 AM