one man's weed

one man's weed is

another woman's dye experiment

spotted Berberis darwinii on one of my perambulations

around delightful Edinburgh

...at Massey University back in 2007

this berry yielded a lovely purple dye

when mashed in hot water

and then turned a rich indigo blue in the presence of copper

[substantive on wool + silk, the samples are still very pretty]

here are some berries crushed into my travel amusement

in local water {from the Novotel tap]

it looks like this

not at all purple or blue

but

when smooshed over an area

previously anointed with mud from San Francisco Bay

it indicated there are probably alkalis [certainly there are salts]

in that lovely goo

it went blueish on the crossmark

which was stencilled with mud

the splodges at top left

are from the blackberries at Fort Mason [SF]

anyhoo i thought it might be interesting to see if copper made a difference

fortunately

i'm carrying US pennies

and a handy magnifying glass, necessary in order to sort sheep from goats - in this instance pre1982 pennies from the others [the old ones are copper, the new are some kind of trickery]

 so

i added some pennies to the mix

and a sign to deter over-zealous cleaners

we'll see what tomorrow brings

meanwhile on another note

i made friends with a local resident

while toddling down a set of stairs

[i love cities with hidden stairs]

s/he is bottom right in the bigger picture