Ran across something called the "Skunk Train", and am thinking that is not the best marketing name for a train ride. #railroads #tourism
@ai6yr @yoused
If you explore Fort Bragg a little more, you will run across something called Glass Beach. Now, it is part of McKerricher Beach State Park. People come from all over the world to explore and marvel at the bits of glass that are all that remains from the town dump where we dumped our garbage back in the 50s and 60s.
@dougfir @ai6yr @yoused To be clear, these days is just a Pacific cliffside beach with lots of weathered glass. It’s been cleaned up of the big detritus and made into a park.
But honestly not sure what the locals were thinking when they had the bright idea to throw their garbage off a cliff into the Pacific in the first place.
@dougfir @joy @yoused My friends and I used to hang out in the canyons near where I grew up in Salt Lake City, which were randomly strewn with old cars and tin cans, along with other detritus. It seems like that was the usual. I wonder what ever happened to all those old cars, or if they just covered them up with dirt when they put houses there.
@dougfir @joy @ai6yr @yoused unfortunately lots of it blows or washes into the ocean before it can get into a garbage truck and head to a landfill. We see a fair amount of fresh garbage underwater in Monterey regularly. It's certainly way less than when they dumped it straight into the ocean though!
Fun fact: there's a big modern landfill a few miles north of us maybe two miles inland from the beach and surrounded by strawberry fields. 🍓🏖️🚮😋🤤🤢
@douglasvb @dougfir @joy @ai6yr @yoused I live in one of the top strawberry growing areas in US. Plastic film used in part of the growing cycle was found to contribute to the amount of nano plastics in the soil, where they are taken up by plant roots and diffused into every part of the plant. Air borne particles also end up in the soil.
I eat a lot of strawberries, and am sure my body is full of nanoplastics. There are particles in nearly
every kind of food. Can science save us from ourselves?
@Barbramon1 @dougfir @joy @ai6yr @yoused just about everything in the Salinas valley is grown with copious amounts of plastic. It's absurd how much they use and how it almost all goes to the landfill after every harvest. Even all the drip irrigation lines seem to be torn out and thrown away.
Another one I'm curious about is all of the plastic water pipes that are made of plastic. Basically all new construction is plastic pipes. And all of the new water pipes in the street are in our area, too.
@douglasvb @Barbramon1 @dougfir @joy @yoused The amount of disposable plastic in agriculture is amazing. (I am equally to blame here, as I have been doing a lot of experimentation with hydroponics... lots of plastic involved :-(
@ai6yr @Barbramon1 @dougfir @joy @yoused I wonder if there's money to be made in finding a better alternative. Hydroponics could be done with clay and redwood instead of plastic, for instance 🤔
@douglasvb @Barbramon1 @dougfir @joy @yoused Soon, you'll have me weaving baskets out of native plants and smearing them with asphalt scavenged from seeps! 🤪
@ai6yr @Barbramon1 @dougfir @joy @yoused don't threaten me with a good time 😅😅
@ai6yr @Barbramon1 @dougfir @joy @yoused ... And people always make fun of underwater basket weaving when discussing "useless" college classes and degree programs!
Well I've got news for them... Baskets made out of native materials are the future!
@ai6yr @douglasvb @Barbramon1 @dougfir @joy @yoused
Had small baskets from Alaska with lids made of just grasses that held water. Still have African ones that would hold water soaked.
@stevewfolds @ai6yr @douglasvb @dougfir @joy @yoused
The Chumash people that inhabited this area also
made watertight baskets. Some were so durable they were used for cooking.
The baskets shown in your post are not only practical, but works of art.
@douglasvb @ai6yr @dougfir @joy @yoused You answered my question before I asked it. 🙂
I lived in Boston, home of the first urban waterworks in the US. Wooden pipes that were laid in the eighteenth century are still occasionally uncovered at construction sites, often in great condition. They were abandoned when the city pressurized the system. Wondering if modern technology could make wooden pipes strong enough to function under pressure.
@douglasvb @dougfir @joy @ai6yr @yoused
Not sure what material is used for those water pipes. If it's PVC it's unclear whether nanoplastics leach into the water supply. There are conflicting studies.
Wondering what safe and sustainable alternatives there are to PVC and other plastics?
@Barbramon1 @douglasvb @dougfir @joy @ai6yr @yoused We're trying to reduce the amount of plastic we use in our big garden / almost market farm. And it's hard. Flood irrigation: the dams are plastic. Drip irrigation: the tubes are plastic. Greenhouse/hoop house: the walls/cover are plastic. Tarps for late season ripening: plastic. And that's even without using plastic mulch like the big operations do and starting all our seedlings in soil blocks rather than plastic cups.
It's a problem.
@colo_lee @Barbramon1 @douglasvb @dougfir @joy @ai6yr Funny how my early comment was about stoners: hemp can be used for PVC and also for biodegradeable plastics. Not that making better plastics is the answer to using less of it.
@dougfir @ai6yr @yoused Albuquerque has Glass Gardens. Very similar. Where the city dumped old glass and China from the 20s-40s https://maps.app.goo.gl/tzgoLJwFnNyaZcAR7?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy
There's a year-round steam train through the redwoods at Roaring Camp between Santa Cruz and San Jose. Easy side trip if you're already visiting the Bay Area or Monterey Bay
@douglasvb @dveditz @ai6yr We watched the Cumbres & Toltec make its way through the valley one time as we were up near the pass. Never saw the Durango-Silverton train, but it would be fun to try.
@yoused LOL my thought was it was because there are a lot of people growing weed in Mendocino and it smells like skunk there, but... no. Per the train line:
"
The nickname “Skunk” originated in 1925, when motorcars were introduced (today sometimes referred to as railbuses or railcruisers). These single unit, self-propelled motorcars had gasoline-powered engines for power and pot-bellied stoves burning crude oil to keep the passengers warm.
The combination of the fumes created a very pungent odor, and the old timers living along the line said these motorcars were like skunks, “You could smell them before you could see them.” "
https://www.skunktrain.com/about/