#1: What are some of the ways...?

Question of the Week
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QOTW #1:

What are some of the ways you have engaged with environment/sustainability so far in 2021?

This can be physically, mentally, emotionally, it could be through work or personal life, it could be in "big" ways or "small". Tell us about it!
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I set up an appointment, through our solar coop, to have our house checked for solar panel installation. It’s an exciting possibility. We’ve talked about doing this forever. Now we get to find out what our options are. :partying_face:

PS: There’s still time to join the solar coop if you’re interested!!!

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I shoveled lots of snow, even bought a new shovel cause I was having so much fun shoveling. I have plans to build a snowfort soon.

I have gone to Niemackl Lake Park and the USFWS Wetlands with Norma (my dog/pig), I ventured out to Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center and stood among some of the <1% MN remaining Native Prairie (yes I did use this map in my senior seminar). Bonus: I did not have to pay to get into or spend hours hiking any of these beautiful trails.

I read Morris’ own Joshua Phillip Johnson’s debut novel, The Forever Sea! Fantastic! Amazing! I loved this eco-fantasy! I will read it again SOON!

Today I made a smoothie with plant-based protein powder. Yum!

An edit: I also realized I have been sending letters to @amelian via the USPS and that has felt deeply connected to place & time which is environment which is grand ole stuff. Big fan.

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I bought a toothbrush with a bamboo handle! I don’t really know how much better that is. I am also determined to not grab anymore plastic bags. I have so many plastic bags shoved into random corners of my house because I can’t bear to just throw them away and my roommates keep bringing home more from the grocery store. It is a real problem. Do they have plastic bag recycling somewhere in Morris and if so do they actually recycle them? Or Syd if you need free dog poop bags, let me know, you can have most of these bags.
Also I read Braiding Sweetgrass in 2020, but it is an amazing book and you should all read it.

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In the dorms on campus there are plastic bag recycling bins. The bags get sent to a facility and turned into benches that we get on campus I believe!

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I’m looking forward to reading, The Forever Sea, but I have a few others to get through first. So many books so little time!

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Willies has a plastic bag recycling bin at its entrance. I don’t know what happens to them though.

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I read The Rambunctious Garden by Emma Marris, which I got for Xmas. There’s a lot going on in the book, but the short version is that there’s precious little “truly wild” space left on the planet, as we’ve touched almost everything in one way or another. And now climate change makes all that triply so.

The book’s pretty optimistic, though, sharing interesting examples of “rewilding”, and coexistence of nature and urban and agricultural spaces. We “just” have to be honest and open about the hard truths that it will basically never be “as it used to be”, whatever that even means.

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