Today I spent an hour researching about mason bees and how to care for them. They're insanely cool! I learned that, unlike honeybees, mason bees are solitary, so each female mason bee builds her own nest without a colony or queen. They are super efficient pollinators for early spring flowers and they're also known for their docile nature. They also have a pollination rate of 95% compared to honey bees with just 5%. Keeping them involves providing a nesting structure with these removable tubes or trays to help with annual cleaning, a nearby source of mud for nest construction, and early-blooming flowers nearby. I am definitely considering installing some small mason bee houses all around the yard, and I'm super excited to see how it turns out. I think it could be a great addition alongside the pollinator lawn I just set up.

Eco Challenge Post 6: Transportation. Since I don't have a car myself, I often grocery shop with either my roommate or another friend with a vehicle who lives in the dorms. This week, I decided to try and convince my roommate to bus with me instead of taking his car. The place we go isn't too far anyways, so he ended up hesitantly agreeing. It was nice using public transport rather than using his car, we got to talk more while he was engaged rather than busy driving and I talked about some of the things I've learned about in this class, especially regarding considering public transport and/or walking/biking when possible. Overall it was a good time and taking the bus versus driving only took a tiny bit longer, plus we got to join a vehicle already going that route rather than adding another one onto the road.

This week for the theme "Nature" I researched the project going on in my literal backyard, the Johnson Creek Watershed restoration project. I have received MANY mailers about this project, but didn't understand what the goal was. Johnson creek starts to the West of me and explodes into many branches to the East of me, immediately after the 205. I've seen trees taken down, and new plants added in front of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The project is trying to restore "riparian ecosystems" which are all the plants and animals that live on riverbanks and at the edges of creeks. My favorite of these creatures are the many singing frogs along the creek that I get to hear all summer. The funding for this project was provided by NOAA and the section in my backyard is being proofed for flood prevention.

For my eco challenge , I tried not buying anything online for the week. I noticed I usually want to shop when I am bored or when I see clothes that look good online. Instead of buying something new, I looked through clothes I already had and made an outfit with those. It made me realize I already own enough, but I still get the feeling that I need more. The hard part was not looking online and getting tempted. The good part was saving money and not creating more waste from shipping and packaging and room I didn't have. This connected to consumerism because it showed me how easy it is to buy things I do not really need.

Transportation week: For the week focused on transportation, I made sure to take the max to work at any opportunity I had. Of the four days I worked, I took the max to work 3 times and went home carpooling with my neighbor. This is something we've done before, but we both recently got out of the habit of carpooling/ taking the max for convenience. As much as this did take a little more time, I did spend more time walking and knitting on the days I took public transit.

This week I helped my parents plant their yearly summer garden. They have some metal tubs that are great planter beds and every summer they plant tons of edible stuff that contributes to salads and cooking all season. I helped them plant lettuce, kale, arugula, peppers, green onions, tomatoes, beans, squash, and basil (might be forgetting a thing or two).

Eco Challenge Post Seven: Consumerism. Recently I've been thinking about how I need new clothes since the weather is getting hotter and most of the clothes I have in my dorm are geared towards cold weather. After thinking more about it and considering what we've discussed in class regarding overconsumption and fast fashion, I realized I actually have a lot of clothes that I just haven't looked through in a while and I should start there. I decided to visit home last weekend (5/23-5/24) to not only see family and friends like I do whenever I visit, but also to sort through old clothes in bags / boxes in my family's garage rather than going out to buy more. I found a ton of shorts and t-shirts that I had completely forgotten about and that were still in great condition, so I was able to avoid wastefully buying new items when I had other options available.

For this weeks Nature Eco Challenge, I spent time outside and payed more attention to nature around me. I went on a walk and lots of walking with my dogs instead of just staying inside and being on my phone. While I was walking, I noticed the trees, plants, birds, and just how much calmer it felt being outside for a little bit. It made me feel relaxed. I also picked up a few small pieces of trash that I saw because I felt like if I am going to enjoy the space, I should also help take care of it.

This week with the topic of consumerism, I decided to try and only buy things that I need. This is something that I usually do anyway, however this week I tried to be extra careful about it. If I went to buy something, I stopped to ask myself, is this something I really need? Is there a local or more sustainably produced alternative? I don't shop that much to begin with, so this wasn't all that difficult, but I think taking the time to be more mindful about the things we buy is really valuable. Even with something like food, that I need to buy to survive, I found that there are ways to shop that are more sustainable. We have to much access to consumer products that we often take it for granted, and hardly stop to think about with it really means to need something.

Have not really needed to purchase anything this week, but a couple weeks ago I started buying a couple better goods for my apartment. I have a weird thing against single use items, so I was trying to justify buying a rice cooker and maybe a toaster. For the rice cooker I compared it to a similar model that is made from more plastic parts, but is a little bit cheaper. I ended up checking how quickly the parts deteriorate on average for the plastic vs metal models and found that I would end up saving money by buying the metal version. With a plus of being able to make sponge cake in it which somehow turns out really well. For the toaster I honestly could not justify buying something that only heats up bread especially since I have a stove, and I kind of just hate having to many things.
I have also been repairing some of my computers and reselling them recently since I had so many extra parts laying around.