Nyah Hawley

For my consumerism ecochallenge, I chose to track my purchases for the month of July. I went back and looked at the money that I have spent during July to figure out what I was spending my money on, when I was spending my money, and why. I found that outside of the few bills that I have to pay monthly, all of the money that I spend is from fast food restaurants or from stores like Goodwill or Ross, and most of that is unplanned spending. Having seen my bank history, I have found some things about my consumption that I wanted to reflect on. First, seeing how often that I got fast food in July, I know that cutting out or decreasing the amount that I eat out will drastically change the amount that I consume. I mean, like 75% of all my purchases is fast food. Not only will cutting down or out fast food cut down my spending and consuming, it will also reduce the amount of waste that I produce. Secondly, the items that I would buy at the stores were items that I, for the most part, didn't need, but I really wanted. Recently, I almost entirely shop for clothes or items at Goodwill or other thrift stores because it keeps corporations like Target or Ross from getting my money; it helps more against overproduction; the stores have everything I need and things are more unique/sturdy. As we talked about in class, obsolescence has made newer products less trustworthy, but at the thrift stores, you can get solid clothes or items that actually hold up. Lastly, I learned that I don't check my bank history nearly as much as I should. I found out that I paid for two cheap monthly subscriptions that I don't use. Ever. This came as a surprise to me, because I remember cancelling one of them months ago. Anyways, in the future, I want to keep paying attention to how I spend my money, where and why, so that I can make more ethical and appropriate decisions with my money.

For my nature ecochallenge, I have been working on spending more time outside since the start of the class. For about a week, I went on a walk daily around my neighborhood. I found a little library and an overgrown community garden in around my neighborhood, which I didn't know was there even though I've lived in my house for six years. I haven't gone on any walks around my neighborhood this week, but I have been outside multiple times everyday. I will spend time talking to Ernesto and Judd, playing with my dog, walking around my yard, or just staring at the beautiful trees in my neighbors' yards. Yesterday, I spent an hour walking around my yard with no music or distractions. I thought about life problems, which was nice to reflect on. I, also, thought about how I could try to upgrade our backyard and fix some of the issues we have. For example, we have wasps, so I was thinking of ways that I could decrease the amount of wasps around. I thought about how to use the natural environment and ecosystem to my benefit. I thought about natural predators, like birds. This made me think about how I could attract more birds, which brought me to building a birdhouse or a bird oasis. I thought about where I could plant plants to block my dog from digging underneath the fences. All of this thinking later led to me looking up what are some natural predators of wasps. I found that dragonflies and birds are some, so then I looked up how to attract more dragonflies to our backyard. I'm excited to see where I can take my backyard to be filled with more native plants, less wasps, and hopefully a little sustainable oasis with a compost crate and a little garden maybe...

This week for my community ecochallenge, I chose to get out of my house and into the community. Something that I have really been looking for recently is a community that I belong to. Being Black in a predominantly white area is very isolating, so I turned to another big part of my identity-my queerness LOL. I figured this was the perfect time to go explore something in the Salem LGBTQ+ community, and I went to my first drag brunch. While at brunch, I met a few new people who I opened up to about my inexperience with LGBTQ+ events/the community. These amazing humans offered me their socials and told me that they are very involved in the community and they could help me a little with getting more involved. It was amazing! I also got to support some amazing divas who blew me away with their personalities and performances. Getting out into the community, especially one that is a lot bigger than I thought it was, was really nice.
My transportation ecochallenge was more difficult this week. I was going to ride the bus to go to the drag brunch and the store, but, in the end, I was too intimidated by the idea of figuring out bus routes, that I just drove to the brunch instead. Since I was already there, I also spent time walking around downtown Salem after the brunch, looking in different shops, finding new places, and I bought a few things that I needed from the store anyway, which saved me a carbon-emitting trip to the grocery store. I'm going to keep exposing myself to more of the bus routes and system, to get comfortable enough to ride it somewhere, but it's probably going to be a slower integration. I would love to get to this point sooner rather than later though, because I could save money on gas, doing other things while on the bus, and cut my carbon emissions from driving.

Today i went outside to say good morning to Ernesto and Judd (my tomato plants) and I noticed that they grew new leaves at the bottom of the stalk! I took some pictures because I'm so excited to share this. I've been worried that I wasn't taking care of them right, even though they are pretty low effort, but they actually look really good, in my opinion. On the downside, the spider webs gross me out, but I'm leaving them alone because, apparently, spiders are beneficial to protect my plant babies LOL. I'm excited to see what they look like at the end of the season...

This week for my ecochallenge, I was going to go to a local farm called Olson Stuart Farms. However, I got two tomato plants from Learning Gardens on Wednesday, so I changed my plan. I instead wanted to focus on my tomato plants, Ernesto and Judd. I planted them, and they seem to be doing good. I spent a few hours in total looking through information about how to grow tomato plants and getting everything set up. By planting these tomatoes, I'm hoping to grow some beautiful heirloom tomatoes that we can use in my house. Doing this can mean that, at least for a bit, we can use homegrown tomatoes instead of the tomatoes from the grocery store. My tomatoes won't have all of the emissions, pesticides, or miles that store tomatoes will. Tomatoes are one of the dirty dozen from EWG's list, which means high levels of pesticides. My tomatoes will be pesticide free, although I have spiders trying to build webs and I HATE spiders. I want to leave them alone but I also don't know if they'll hurt Ernesto and Judd. And I really hate spiders. I plan on finding natural remedies if it does get too much.