Ran across something called the "Skunk Train", and am thinking that is not the best marketing name for a train ride. #railroads #tourism
@ai6yr Why not? You would get all kinds of stoners. (And it is in CA.)
@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.” "
@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 @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 @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.
@yoused @colo_lee @Barbramon1 @dougfir @joy @ai6yr I feel like industrious stoners might be the ones to solve our addiction to plastic in agriculture. They seem to often be on the forefront of agricultural technological development.