View this email in your browser.

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 send you this? Sign up for yourself here. Do you know someone else who would enjoy it? Forward to a friend. 

For close to fifty years, Rick Karney, founder and director emeritus of the MV Shellfish Group, has championed Island aquaculture. Now he’s retired, and growing figs (among other things) in his backyard (and is our Spring issue Local Hero). “I have been a biologist since I was a little kid,” Rick told Lucas Thors in this delightful conversation about where Rick came from, how he got here, and what’s next. “They used to call me ‘Butterfly Boy’ because I would have a butterfly net and I would go around the neighborhood and catch butterflies. Where I grew up, in New Jersey, my folks had a little boat. We would go to one of the freshwater lakes about an hour away from my house. … I was always just fascinated by being on the water — all the life, the birds, the fish, the insects. My father had a net that two people pulled to catch bait. I remember pulling in the net and there would be little blowfish, sometimes crabs, all sorts of cool stuff.” Read more about the early days of the solar-powered Shellfish Hatchery and about the Island’s long love affair with shellfish.

Quick Links

Skip scrolling! Here's what you'll find in this edition of the Bluedot Newsletter:

• The Bugs in Matt Pelikan’s Backyard Meadow

• Don’t Just Recycle … Precycle!

• Merchants Who Recycle: Credo Beauty, Thousand Fell Sneakers, and Nimble Tech

• Rick Karney, Spawnmeister

• Carol Gilligan’s Tasty Choucroute, and her Cauliflower Carrot Soup

• And How Carol, Famous Ethicist, Cooks What She Cooks

• Get MV Bluedot Living Wherever You Are

• Dear Dot: What’s a Smart Plug?
  

• Charge that EV on Island. We tell you where!

Sponsored

Powered by People

Vineyard Power is the Island’s preeminent renewable energy nonprofit, and their scope of work touches many aspects of life in our small community. You might have seen them giving talks in front of their information table at the Climate Action Fair, or in the Brazilian community, speaking with community members at various Island churches. The local organization that’s leading the way in the clean energy transition was originally dreamt up in the late Paul Pimentel’s living room in answer to the question “How are we, as an island, going to take on this challenge of creating a future that is not reliant on the burning of fossil fuels?”

Currently, Vineyard Power offers a number of services to support Islanders looking to transition away from oil and gas and install an electric heat pump, solar panels, distributed battery storage systems, or purchase an electric vehicle. In the Spring edition of Bluedot Living, read about how Vineyard Power was created, and learn about their Energy Transition Program, which is laying the foundation for a 100 percent renewable energy economy on Martha’s Vineyard.

The Circular Economy, and Our Spring Issue!

Our first stop was Chicken Alley. My friend had arrived for her first visit to Martha’s Vineyard, exhausted after a long day of traveling. But I’d bought a wicker chair for my front porch earlier when I was out walking my dog. Bruce had taped a SOLD sign to it and I’d promised to return around lunchtime to pick it up. My friend perked up. “A thrift store?” she said.

Our island is rife with thrift stores and opportunities to buy secondhand. The Vineyard joke, my co-worker Jamie Kageleiry had once told me, was that, ten years after discarding an item, you’d end up buying it back at a yard sale. 

I wonder when the day will come when guests to my home will discover that they’re sitting on their old kitchen chairs. This, ahem, circular economy puts a dent in the garbage exported off Island. And it keeps perfectly useful items in circulation. My friend ended up buying some clothes she was planning to wear later in the week to see Johnny Hoy — an artist whose music she’d loved from afar for more than a decade — play at the Ritz.

I wish we could have stayed longer and joined the Vineyard Conservation Society’s 32nd Annual Earth Day Beach Cleanup on April 27, followed by an Earth Day Conservation Festival at the Museum (You're encouraged to carpool, bike, walk, or take VTA's free Earth Day transit.)

The spring issue of our magazine is out! Find it at both Cronig’s and Our Market/Your Market, among other places. We’re pretty proud of it and would love to hear what you think. Write us at editor@bluedotliving.com with suggestions or ideas for stories. 

Want to save yourself a stroll to the store, or make sure you get our four quarterly issues (plus our annual Green Guide) no matter where you are? Subscribe here!

Happy Earth Day! See you in two weeks. 

–Leslie Garrett (and Jamie Kageleiry)

In partnership with Hear.com

Do you struggle with hearing loss? You don't have to suffer in silence.

Want to experience a world where missed conversations are a thing of the past? With hear.com, you can! 

They’re delivering you the best new innovation in the hearing care industry – the revolutionary IX. Packed with new features to ensure you never miss another important conversation, the IX also seamlessly integrates into your daily routine. With user-friendly features and the promise of speech clarity, it’s no wonder that people everywhere are excited about it. 

Don’t just hear - thrive, without skipping a beat!

Earth911 offers up some precycling questions to consider

                    Paid Advertisement

BUY LESS/BUY BETTER:

Companies With Great Recycling Programs

If you purchase anything via one of our links, including from Amazon, we may earn a small commission.

To celebrate Earth Day, we’re highlighting companies that have great recycling programs — ones that really make it easy to find a home for items that, all too often, might otherwise end up in the landfill.

Dear Dot: What’s a Smart Plug?

– Illustration by Elissa Turnbull

Dear Dot,

What is a smart plug?
–Julia Dennis

Dear Julia,

A smart plug is a little device (available on Amazon, and hardware stores) that plugs into an outlet and into which you can plug appliances and other devices. But because it's “smart,” you can control it remotely, turning off said devices and appliances when they’re unneeded or charged. In that way, smart plugs can save you energy and reduce or eliminate what’s called “phantom” energy. 

What the heck’s phantom energy? Read on.

See more Dot here. Got a question for her? Write her at deardot@bluedotliving.com

Sign up here for Your Daily Dot newsletter! Get a daily dose of Dot's eco-friendly wisdom when she answers your sustainability questions.

The Bluedot Kitchen: Cooking With Care, Cooking With Carol Gilligan

Carol Gilligan’s groundbreaking gender studies classic In a Different Voice put her on the map as a psychologist, a feminist, and an ethicist. We get to meet Carol, a part-time Aquinnah resident, in this piece by Laura Roosevelt, about how Carol carries her “Ethics of Care” into the way she cooks and feeds her family and friends. Laura made a couple of Carol’s recipes, this Anti-Inflammatory Cauliflower Carrot Soup, and this tasty Choucroute.

Everything You’ll Want to Know About Resilient Landscaping

The MV Commission’s Climate Action Fair this year will focus on “Greening Vineyard Landscapes.” You can pick up info and talk to experts about how to plant native species, and learning to rethink what a good Vineyard lawn might be. Plus, there’s lots more info about anything related to climate change adaptation, conservation, and oh — good food and company, too! At the Ag Hall on Sunday, May 19, from noon to 4 pm. Come visit us at our Bluedot Living table! We’ll have a raffle!

HANDBOOK

Congratulations on your new electric vehicle! Where on Island can you give it juice? Check out the map — it’s included in Bluedot’s Ultimate Simple, Smart, Sustainable Handbook to Martha’s Vineyard.

What’s Behind the Name “Bluedot”?

“There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world,” astronomer Carl Sagan wrote in 1994’s Pale Blue Dot. “To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” Sagan’s humbling words inspire us to deliver stories to you that reflect his and so many others’ work to cherish this blue dot. Please consider forwarding this newsletter to your friends and family to share and inspire real-world eco-actions we can take at home and in our Martha’s Vineyard community. 

Thanks for being part of our Bluedot community!

–Jamie Kageleiry and Leslie Garrett

Editors, Bluedot Living Martha’s Vineyard 

Paid Advertisement

FOLLOW US

Bluedot Living magazine and marthasvineyard.bluedotliving.com are published by Bluedot, Inc. Visit our national website here: bluedotliving.com. Check out our other Bluedot Living locations and our Brooklyn website here.

Subscribe to any of our newsletters here.

Sent to: _t.e.s.t_@example.com

Unsubscribe from Bluedot Living – Martha's Vineyard | Unsubscribe from All Bluedot Living Newsletters

Bluedot, Inc., 2945 Townsgate Road, Ste 200, Westlake Village, CA 91361, United States