Claire Nagel

This week, I decided to find a petition I was passionate about and sign it. The petition I found was about helping sea turtles in Florida. Apparently, 13 Florida homeowners want to install these things called Geotextile tubes. These tubes would lay on the beach and obstruct the area where 90% of sea turtles in the world lay their eggs. These tubes will also contribute to pollution on the beaches. I decided to sign the petition, and if you want to read more and maybe sign as well, here is the link: https://www.change.org/p/county-commissioner-jeremiah-blocker-stop-obstructions-to-endangered-sea-turtle-nests-that-could-set-a-precedent-in-florida?source_location=search

This week, I attended a local vegan event. The event was a potluck and speech. The potluck featured tons of great food. The talk was on a bill that was attempting to be passed in Oregon that focuses on factory farming. It attempted to limit factory farming. Unfortunately, it didn't pass this year, but the organization is attempting to push it through again next year. I learned that dairies and other farms that house animals have no limit on the amount of ground water they can use. This means massive amounts of groundwater are used up. There is also a dairy in Oregon that houses over 50,000 cows in one location! This seems super inhumane. Overall the talk was super informative and I am glad that I went!

This week, I decided to start my journey of growing my own food by purchasing a blueberry bush! I have never grown something that I can eat before, so I am excited to start trying. I got the bush from a stall at the local farmers market. The person I bought it from said I should get fresh blueberries off of it soon! I am so excited to see it grow and to harvest my home grown blueberries. If this goes well, I might be inspired to buy more food plants!

This week, I challenged myself to reduce the amount of plastic I purchased during my grocery trip. This was pretty difficult. When I looked at what I already had in my pantry, almost everything was wrapped in plastic. I decided to mostly purchase fresh fruits and vegetables this week. That is not usually what I reach for, but I think this will give me a good opportunity to try out some new recipes. There were a couple of small items, like peanut butter, that due to my limitations, I still had to purchase in a plastic container. I also needed bread, which is almost impossible to find not wrapped in plastic, so I decided to go to the farmers market to purchase that. The bread I got was wrapped in paper and was super delicious! Overall, I could see myself shopping like this more often. It was a challenge, but it's nice to know I wont be contributing to as much plastic waste as I was before.

This week, I decided to watch the documentary Fantastic Fungi on Netflix. It was really interesting. Interestingly, it featured the man from the ted talk we watched on Fungi. This documentary discussed the ways in which fungi are beneficial. One thing I learned was that trees can actually communicate with each other using fungi pathways underground.
This documentary also talked about the way we use fungi in so much of our everyday lives. Fungi are so important to so many medicines and foods. They are a great food source on their own as well. This documentary also talked about the benefits of psylocibin. Apparently, it can help to cure a stutter!
This documentary made me feel much more connected to nature. It made me want to go try to go and forage for mushrooms. I want to look into more resources for mushroom foraging in Oregon, so if anyone knows of any good resources, let me know!

This week I needed to purchase a new pair of shorts for summer. Rather than buying them new, I decided to thrift them. I got this idea from the ted talk we watched just a few weeks ago. I decided to do some research on the impact of thrifting and found an article by Topic Insight that says that thrifting keeps clothes out of landfills, reduces the carbon emissions from clothing production, and even lowers water consumption. This has inspired me to thrift even more of my clothes in the future!

This week I decided to go to the park blocks to connect with nature and do some mindfulness work. I think the park blocks are a beautiful little piece of nature in the middle of the city. I honestly think this experience was very healing for me. I do not have access to nature very often, so it was nice to spend some time soaking in the sights. While I was walking, I noticed a little planter area. I’m not sure what it is growing, but I thought it was really beautiful. I also took some time to journal about my experience while sitting and watching the squirrels. Overall, it was really nice to connect with nature!

This week I decided to take a look at my trash and see where I could reduce the amount of waste I produce. One thing I noticed is that I had A LOT of coffee cups in my trash. I decided that for this week, I was going to bring my own cup to my favorite coffee shop every time I went. This definitely was a challenge for me because 1. I am shy and was scared to ask them to put my drink in the cup and 2. I almost kept forgetting to bring it. I was able to bring my own cup 4 times this week. Overall, it went really well and this is something I can see myself doing long term.