How An Island Turned Around Their Climate Catastrophe

Just a silly idea I had: Glow-Bugs! They are mechanical bugs, roughly the size of a hand, and they are great lights! They cling to anywhere you put them, making different lighting in your room very easy. Or you can program them to follow you to have optimal light, either crawling on a wall, or flying in front of you when wandering through the darker parts of the town (or forest). The wings are flexible sun panels. Folded in, the wings block the light to a warmer, dim lighting. If you turn them off, the outer wings close, making them compact to transport or just pretty to look at. They can also sit on you, like a brooch!

Do you know how to take care of your sewing machine?

Taking care of your machine over the long haul influences the longevity of your machine. It could mean the difference of having a machine over the span of 5 years versus 50+ years. Can a sewing machine even last 50 years? Yes, with proper maintenance and care it can! My personal machine was released about 1960 making it 58 years old. My grandmother’s Singer Touch and Sew is around 50 years old and she uses that machine so much it’s ridiculous it’s still working!

So how do I take care of my machine?

Glad you asked! It’s really not that hard to take care of your machine, in fact, the instruction booklet that came with your machine probably tells you how. Some new machines make it really difficult to take them apart to clean them up, but you’re going to want to figure out how!

If your instruction booklet doesn’t tell you how to clean your machine, below are some pictures from my own instruction booklet. Most machines are very similar and you can generally follow the same instructions. 

Here’s some general advice for cleaning your machine:

Firstly, dust out your machine. This means removing all the lint that gathered up from your last project (or projects). You can take compressed air and blow out your machine, or, like me, you can take a small, soft paint brush and gently brush it out.

Second, time to oil your machine! You can find sewing machine oil at almost any craft store. I recommend one with a zoom spout to make it easier to oil your machine.

So what do you oil? Pretty much any moving parts except gears and your belt. (Take a look at the pictures.) Work in the oil as you apply it by turning the hand wheel toward yourself. Also be sure not to put oil anywhere you would have thread or fabric moving through. Those places generally aren’t meant to be oiled and it will end up on your projects!!

Lastly, lubricate your gears. This is also a great time to check the condition of your gears. Gears wear down over time and I can say that I’ve had to replace gears before due to wear and tear. The teeth on the gears break with age (or improper machine use), although it can take a while before that happens.

LUBRICANT IS NOT THE SAME AS OIL. DO NOT OIL GEARS. NO. STOP. BAD. You can also buy this at your craft store, most likely.

How often should I be dusting and oiling my machine?

After every major project, or, if you’re working on a very large project (like a leather jacket), you might want to do it sporadically throughout.

How often should I lubricate my machine?

If you don’t use your machine frequently, once every two years is probably acceptable. I use my machine frequently enough to justify once a year.

OMG I FOUND BROKEN PARTS WHAT DO I DO?!

Google it. Most likely someone has already had the same problem and it’s probably documented somewhere on the internet just waiting for you to stumble across. Gears and belt replacements are the most common. 

If you’re looking for Singer Sewing machine parts, I highly recommend ordering parts from www.singeronline.com. Not only are they reasonably priced, but their products are high quality. I’ve ordered many parts from this business and they have my star of approval. They also have a youtube channel and document some common problems with machines as well as how to fix them. Check it out: Singer Online YouTube

Self Sufficiency, 1970s

Meet the Women Behind California’s First Open-Water Seaweed Farm

They’re on a quest for a delicious solution to global food insecurity

Tessa Emmer, Catherine O’Hare, and Avery Resor constitute the all-female braintrust behind Salt Point Seaweed, a fledgling Bay Area company that launched last June. They’ve been harvesting wild seaweed off the coast of Mendocino County, located a few hours north of San Francisco, for two years and selling it to chefs at local restaurants, seafood CSAs, and at retail. Now, they’re striving to become the first West Coast seaweed farming operation to establish an active, open-water farm.

The idea to launch a sustainable seaweed syndicate came to Emmer, O’Hare, and Resor after living in East Africa and witnessing the burgeoning role of seaweed in those communities—as local fishing stock dwindled, resourceful women had found a reliable replacement in seaweed. Seaweed grows rapidly and easily without help from external inputs. Emmer and Resor, who share a background in natural resource management, drew inspiration from a hardscrabble female aquafarming operation in Zanzibar. “There were so many women farmers using it as an alternative revenue model in declining fisheries environments,” says Emmer. “We started wondering why it wasn’t happening in California.”

(via Meet the Women Behind California’s First Open-Water Seaweed Farm | Sierra Club)

Salt Point Seaweed is a three-woman team - Tessa Emmer, Catherine O'Hare, and Avery Resor - living in the Bay Area and working throughout California.

Tessa and Catherine met as undergraduates at Oberlin College and have spent many days exploring the Pacific Ocean from Oahu, Hawaii, to Mendocino, California. Tessa fell in love with the coastal and riparian ecosystems of the Pacific coast when she came out to California for a restoration internship with the Presidio of San Francisco. Her drive to work at the intersection of ecological conservation, economic development, and climate adaptation led her to pursue a master in sustainable development at UC Berkeley, where she met Avery.

Catherine has a background in coastal ecology and sustainable agriculture. She grew up next to the ocean, splashing around the sunny tide pools of southern California. After graduating with a Biology degree from Oberlin College, she worked for small scale organic farms and a small food business, solidifying her passion for local food, regenerative food systems, and health.

Avery grew up living and working on a cattle ranch and has been working in sustainable agriculture ever since. At Duke University Marine Lab, she studied marine biology and environmental science and was captivated by the parallels between aquaculture and land-based agriculture. She is integrating her agriculture experience with 10 years of professional cooking experience to bring farm-to-table culinary expertise to our team.

Avery, Catherine, and Tessa are all committed to using business as a force for environmental protection, community development, and food system transformation.

https://www.saltpointseaweed.com/about

You can find out more / follow them on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/saltpointseaweed/

sustainability as a concept done on an individual basis shouldn’t be framed as planet saving because it’s. not. you can’t save the earth by planting your own tomatoes, because the destruction of the earth is due to corporations

what you CAN do is use individual sustainability to gain a level of independence from capitalism for yourself and for your community through things like sharing grown food

We See Seashores Shifting with Satellites

If you’re like us, as soon as the summer Sun is out, you start feeling – well, just beachy, sand you very much. 

Lots of our favorite beaches are inside protected marine areas, which are regulated by governments to keep their ecosystems or cultural heritage intact. If you beachcomb at Cape Cod, swim in the Florida Keys or learn about Hawaiian culture at Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, congrats! You’ve visited a protected marine area.

But time and tide haven’t been kind to some protected beaches.

Beaches are constantly changing, and science teams are using our 30-year record of Earth images from the NASA/USGS Landsat program to study what’s happening.

Overall, the sum total of sandy beaches has increased a bit over the last 30 years. But time and tide haven’t been as kind to our protected beaches – the team found that more than 1/3 of sandy beaches in protected marine areas have been eroding away.

Some of these areas were designated to protect vulnerable plant and animal species or connect delicate ecosystems. They are home to humpback whales and sea turtles, reefs and mangroves that protect the land from erosion and natural disasters, and species which are found in only one habitat in the world. Losing land area could upset the balance of these areas and endanger their future.

Next step: Looking for pearls of wisdom to save the beaches!

Right now, we aren’t sure which beaches are eroding due to natural processes, and which are due to humans – that’s the next step for science teams to investigate. Once we know the causes, we can start working on solutions to save the beaches.

Those 30 years of Landsat data will help scientists find answers to these questions much faster – instead of using airplanes or measuring the beaches by hand, they can use computer programs to rapidly investigate millions of satellite photos spanning many years of change.

By tracking beaches from space, scientists can help keep our summers sandy for years to come.

And that makes us as happy as clams.

Read the full story HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.  

Yacouba Sawadogo is an exceptional man – he single-handedly managed to solve a crisis that many scientists and development organizations could not. The simple old farmer’s re-forestation and soil conservation techniques are so effective they’ve helped turn the tide in the fight against the desertification of the harsh lands in northern Burkina Faso.

Over-farming, over-grazing and over population have, over the years, resulted in heavy soil erosion and drying in this landlocked West African nation. Although national and international researchers tried to fix the grave situation, it really didn’t really make much of a difference. Until Yacouba decided to take matters into his own hands in 1980.

Yacouba’s methods were so odd that his fellow farmers ridiculed him. But when his techniques successfully regenerated the forest, they were forced to sit up and take notice. Yacouba revived an ancient African farming practice called ‘zai’, which led to forest growth and increased soil quality.

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Start a 1-Acre, Self-Sufficient Homestead

Expert advice on how to establish self-sufficient food production, including guidance on crop rotations, raising livestock and grazing management.

By John Seymour

Illustration by Dorling Kindersley