Every other Sunday, Bluedot Living Martha's Vineyard will share stories about local changemakers, Islanders’ sustainable homes and yards, planet-friendly recipes and tips, along with advice from Dear Dot. Did your friend
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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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This painting of a Great Egret by Hannah Moore is one of our all-time favorites. It’s called “After the Rain,” and we used it in our story about the Vineyard’s great ponds (and in this slideshow about the art of the great ponds). Just over a century ago, these Egrets were close to extinction due to the plumage trade — shorebirds were being killed
so their feathers could be used to decorate women’s hats. Until, that is, two determined Boston socialites started a boycott that resulted in the passage of a
law known as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (and in the formation of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, which led to the founding of the National Audubon Society). The Migratory Bird Act effectively ended the plumage trade.
Birds are on our minds these days — the spring migrations have begun. If you’d like to see the activity that will ramp up over the next few weeks, check out the Birdcast Migration Dashboard from Cornell’s Ornithology Lab, which lets you input your county or zip code and see how many birds flew overhead while you slept.
Happy spring! – J.K
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Quick Links
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Skip scrolling! Here's what you'll find in this edition of the Bluedot Newsletter:
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Earth Day Ahead!
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We got Vineyard Conservation Society’s recent newsletter about their Earth Day Beach Cleanup with an after-party at the MV Museum. They need helpers! You can join their planning group and help strategize on the beach cleanup and
the party, take charge of collecting bags from farms, nurseries, and others. Or donate food and drinks for the volunteers! They’d love to talk to you if you’re a photographer (or just like taking photos).
Email Signe Benjamin at beachbefrienders@vineyardconservation.org if you want to help.
By the way, check out the winners of their 2023 “Art of Conservation” contest, which focused on hope.
And on Sunday, May 19, the MVC will sponsor this year’s Climate Action Fair at the Ag Hall, from noon to 4 pm. This year’s theme is Greening Vineyard Landscapes — how Islanders can have a more sustainable relationship with the land. There will be tables from Island businesses working in sustainability and organizations and nonprofits (with many materials in Portuguese as well) with displays and hands-on demos around land use, natural resources, biodiversity, transportation, and more. Panel discussions will address resilient landscaping (see our story on last year’s “Down and Dirty Waste” panel about the Island’s waste stream). Stay tuned for more details!
We’re grateful to the organizations on the Island who are working to create a more sustainable future — if you’ve got something you’d like us to share with our 6,000 readers, let us know: email us here at editor@bluedotliving.com.
And thank you to those readers who support Bluedot with a contribution; this helps us keep our stories accessible to all. (You can do that here, if you’d like!)
See you in two weeks!
– Jamie Kageleiry and Leslie Garrett
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Today’s tip is about taking the time to repair our items … beautifully
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Don’t let your clothes contribute to textile waste. Instead, use visible mending to stitch and embroider simple designs using colorful string or beads to cover or accentuate the flaws. For more Bluedot Climate Quick Tips, click here.
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Paid Advertisement
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What's So Bad About Chocolate?
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We love it! Whether egg-shaped, or in a bar, or melted in a mug, chocolate plays a delicious role in our celebrations, our rituals, our ordinary days. Much of it, however, is the product of child labor and damaging agricultural practices. But that doesn’t mean we have to give it up. Let’s pay attention to what those who are producing responsibly sourced chocolate have to say about how to enjoy this yummiest of treats.
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BUY LESS/BUY BETTER: Spring Cleaning!
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If you make a purchase via one of our links, including from Amazon, we may earn a small commission.
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Baking soda, white vinegar, this 100-year-old scouring product (all on Amazon), and lemons will help you tackle many of your spring cleaning projects. The items below should come in handy for the rest of your list.
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Our Fave Paper Towels
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Sometimes I really do want paper towels to pat down a chicken or clean up a hairball. Who Gives a Crap makes great toilet paper and paper towels and donates 50% of profits to charity.
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Buy now or
read our review.
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The 18-in-1 Original
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The product you’re most likely to find in a Bluedotter’s cleaning arsenal has to be Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap. The iconic 18-in-1 formula works for laundry, dishes, and even mopping.
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Buy now or
Read our review.
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Dear Dot: Are There Rebates to Replace Knob-and-Tube Wiring?
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– Illustration by Elissa Turnbull
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Dear Dot,
I have found that I cannot take advantage of energy efficient programs due to knob-and-tube wiring. Is there a rebate program to rewire a small house allowing me to move forward toward a more energy efficient home? Thank you for your time!
–William
Dear William,
Dot’s first home, a two-story yellow brick that celebrated its centennial the year my family moved in, boasted many old-house flourishes, including stained glass, hardwood floors, a spectacular fireplace, ten-foot ceilings, crown molding and … knob-and-tube wiring. Knob-and-tube, or K&T as it’s sometimes called, was the typical wiring in North American buildings from the late 1800s to the early 1940s. And though it’s frequently cast as hazardous, that reputation seems to rest more on the age of the wiring, improper modifications over the years, or insulation around the wires (which poses a fire hazard) than any inherent danger in knob-and-tube wiring itself.
That said, you’re wise, William, to want to rid your home of its knob-and tube-wiring, both for energy efficiency and, potentially, for safety … And perhaps you’re fortunate enough to live in a state that actually does have programs that you can take advantage of. In Massachusetts, for example, Mass Save is offering up to $7,000 to remove knob-and-tube wiring …
What else does Dot have to say about knob-and-tube wiring? Read on.
See more Dot
here. Got a question for her? Write her at deardot@bluedotliving.com
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Sign up here for Your Daily Dot newsletter! Get a daily dose of Dot's eco-friendly wisdom when she answers your sustainability questions.
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The Quest for Low-Carbon Concrete
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Concrete is a climate villain. If it were a country, it would be the world’s third-largest carbon emitter. But many companies are taking this as a challenge — to create a product that is as strong, durable, and easy to work with as concrete. And, of course, it can’t cost more. They’re producing some solid work! Check out our story.
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HANDBOOK
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Those wedding flowers don’t have to be finished spreading beauty when the “I dos” are done. Second Bloom MV coordinates with wedding/event planners and volunteers who pick up the flowers from the venue and distribute them to the hospital, hospice, and other social organizations on Island. Curious about more eco-Island
resources? Consult our Ultimate Simple, Smart, Sustainable Handbook to Martha’s Vineyard.
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What’s Behind the Name “Bluedot”?
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NASA launched Voyager 1 in 1977, with a planned lifespan of five years, long enough to cruise by Jupiter (about 500 million miles away) and Saturn (about a billion miles distant). But Voyager kept operating and sending back data, and NASA kept extending the mission. Sadly, NASA recently announced that since November 2023 Voyager 1, now 15 billion miles away, is no longer sending back any usable data. NASA is optimistic they can fix the bug on a computer that’s 47 years old and moving at 38,000 miles per hour, with the added complication that it takes over 22 hours for a radio signal to reach the craft.
Of all the tremendous gifts Voyager has given us, the best may be a photo it snapped of Earth on Valentine’s Day 1990 from six billion miles away. Our planet is tiny in the photo, less than a pixel against the vastness of space, appearing slightly blue. Carl Sagan, who worked on the Voyager program, was so moved by the photo, he wrote a whole book inspired by it. You can hear him reciting his ode to the pale blue dot here.
“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our
species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
We take our name, Bluedot Living, from that photo and Carl Sagan. So we say, “Long Live Voyager 1!”
Thanks for being part of our Bluedot community!
– Jamie Kageleiry and Leslie Garrett
Editors, Bluedot Living Martha’s Vineyard
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Jamie Kageleiry, a longtime magazine and newspaper editor from Oak Bluffs, says her favorite spot on earth is on the trails around Farm Pond, and out in a kayak there, looking at birds.
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Leslie Garrett has been covering climate stories for close to two decades. A newcomer part-time to the Vineyard, she’s still figuring out her favorite spot but it’s definitely near the water.
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