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And Bea Brings Another Installment of The Cabbage Dispatch
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A Bluedot Living Newsletter

Welcome to The Hub, a Bluedot Living newsletter that gathers good news, good food, and good tips for living every day more sustainably. Check out our local newsletters covering Martha's Vineyard, San Diego, and Los Angeles and our Brooklyn newsletter here. And you won't want to miss our Marketplace newsletter featuring sustainable products for your home.

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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES

“Let’s think of a forest as being like a four-floor building,” writes Amanda Cronin in this story about a project to catalog all known stands of old-growth forest in the United States. “You have your overstory, canopy, understory, and shrub levels. Now let’s board the elevator … to the basement floor. When the doors slide open, you would be face to face with a collage of wildlife, rivaling the variety of the upper floors. Wild, silky mycelium threads in pastel and light white shades weave around tree roots; hibernating banana slugs; pocket gophers lounging in their burrow; their neighbors, the voles, hiding from owls next door …” Read more here.

DISPATCHES FROM ALL OVER · SUSTAINABLE LIVING ADVICE · ECO-FRIENDLY RECIPES

“Find a piece of natural landscape, something as small as a particular tree branch, and observe it, closely. See how it changes day to day. Join a local mutual aid group. Care for your community. See if giving your time away to someone else leads not to a loss of time but an enrichment of it, a sense of time expanding ever outward.”

–Jenny Odell’s “Saving Time,” as cited in Vox. Odell urges us to reconsider our leisure time not as a break between work, or as an experience to be consumed, or as yet another item on our list to be checked off as we pursue productivity. Rather, Odell wants us to go deeper into leisure, by letting go. Not surprisingly, she suggested we might better achieve this by immersing ourselves in nature, by nurturing the community around us (human and non-human), by getting involved in organizations that help preserve what we love most. On this Mother’s Day, and as many other days as you can, seek out those connections and see if your leisure time isn’t richer for the time spent observing something as small as the blossom on a tree, an inch worm making its way forward, a bird feathering its nest …


QUICK LINKS

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

Tea Lane
Associates

DISPATCHES FROM ALL OVER

BIG IDEAS AND LOCAL CHANGEMAKERS

Bluedot Living reporter Amanda Cronin (who just started a job with the EPA!) takes us to Patagonia, where citizen science is preserving the pristine river system. Annie Sherman highlights a Rhode Island initiative to create jobs focused on the state’s “blue economy.” And, Victoria Thomas celebrates the generous mothering instincts of endangered red wolves in North Carolina, who foster captive-bred pups alongside their own wild-bred litters, helping boost populations.

ECOS Paints - Paint you can feel good about

Dot discusses using the Garbage Disposal vs. Composting.

THE BLUEDOT KITCHEN

Prioritizing seasonal and local ingredients gives you sustainable eating at its very best. And recipes that call for the entirety of an ingredient helps avoid food waste and will have you crowing, “I can’t believe I ate the WHOLE thing.” Braised leeks: Eke out the last of leek season and make use of the entire stalk! Spring Niçoise Salad: Build a main-course salad around salmon, in-season asparagus, and tender spring salad greens.

White Wine Braised Leeks

Spring Niçoise Salad

Cat Litter That’s Earth- and Feline-Friendly

Clumping clay-based kitty litters are notoriously bad for the planet. So Bluedot reporter Cleo Carney and her sometimes fussy feline sidekick Oscar put eco litters to the test — and the pair found two great choices!

The Cabbage Dispatch: Bea Copeland Builds a Home

Follow Bea Copeland, millennial home enthusiast and DIYer, as she turns a decrepit, abandoned cabin into a cozy cottage. In our new eight-part article and video series we’re calling The Cabbage Dispatch (Cabin + Cottage = Cabbage), Bea makes decisions on sustainable building materials, shows us how to shop garage sales and thrift shops, and plans for life in her new home. Catch episode three — “The Redesign —  here. (You can find all episodes here). Subscribe to Bluedot Living's YouTube channel and follow Bluedot’s Instagram so you can see each new episode when we share it.

A Bluedot Favorite Thing: Pests? Seriously!

While mosquitoes and black flies aren’t out in full force quite yet, the ticks are sure making themselves known. But Bluedot Digital Media Manager (and Good Libations columnist!) Julia Cooper urges us to think of these “pests” through more compassionate eyes, thanks to a recent Bluedot Favorite (Audio) Read of hers titled Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains. (Maybe pests go best with a shot of sustainable tequila?) Check out more Bluedot Favorites.

BUY LESS/BUY BETTER

We Hub editors are both mothers and our kids are asking about Mother’s Day gift suggestions. So we did a bit of window shopping in the Bluedot Marketplace and came up with about 87 things we want. Here are three. If you want more, visit our marketplace and sign up for our new BuyBetter newsletter. 

The Bluedot Marketplace includes affiliate links. We may earn a commission when you purchase products through our links.

Axiology

We love Axiology’s versatile lip, cheek, and eye Multi-Sticks and Balmies just as much as we love their recyclable, plastic-free packaging and shipping. 
Read more.

BUY NOW.

Saie Beauty

That gloriously dewy, lit-from-within aura might be Saie’s Glowy Super Gel … or it might be knowing that Saie offsets all its emissions and cleans up ocean plastic. Read more.

BUY NOW.

Ilia

Now’s the time to up your sun protection game. We love the brightening, non-sticky C Beyond Triple Serum SPF 40 from 1% for the Planet member Ilia. Read more.

BUY NOW.

The Social Hour

Let’s talk about waste. Whether you're dealing with #foodwaste or dog waste, you can find a way to reduce your impact. Lomi's biggest sale of the season ends on Sunday, so if you want their countertop composter, act now! You'll get an extra $50 off with code Bluedot. Plus, Boston residents can sign up for FREE curbside food waste collection, and Dear Dot discusses #compostable dog doo bags.

FOLLOW US

Bluedot's Guide to Getting Rid of Anything

If it seems like your children’s stuffed animals breed when you’re not looking, perhaps it’s time to cull the herd, so to speak. Stuffed Animals for Emergencies is a nonprofit that gets comfort objects into the hands of children via emergency organizations like shelters and hospitals. Right now, there are locations in Florida, Illinois, and Missouri. And to find out how to get rid of a whole lot more, consult Bluedot’s Guide to Getting Rid of (Almost) Anything.

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 communities. 


Thanks for being part of our Bluedot community!


–Jamie Kageleiry and Leslie Garrett

Editors
Write us at editor@bluedotliving.com

Jamie Kageleiry, a longtime magazine and newspaper editor from Martha's Vineyard, says her favorite spot on earth is out on a kayak there, looking at birds.

Leslie Garrett has been covering climate stories for close to two decades.  She divides her time between London, Ontario, and Massachusetts. She’s still figuring out her favorite spot but it’s definitely near the water.

SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES

Read past issues of The Hub here.

Bluedot Living® magazine and bluedotliving.com are published by Bluedot, Inc.

Find more simple, smart, sustainable stories at bluedotliving.com, our Martha's Vineyard website, our Brooklyn website, our San Diego website and our Los Angeles website. Subscribe to this newsletter here.

Write us at editor@bluedotliving.com if you’d like to see a Bluedot newsletter or magazine in your community.


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