“The pair built two prototypes, a “Happy Time” loom built from a rotary telephone and a Speak & Spell style baby’s toy, and an “Apocaloom.” Hyyppä documented the construction and use of the “Happy Time” loom on her personal website. “Although looms have become hi-tech through industrialisation and accelerating mass production, the basic design of these useful machines that also inspired programming have remained largely the same,” she wrote. “Our aim was to explore these principles in the context of electro-waste by building loom prototypes.”
The functional little “Happy Time” loom plays a children’s song when the receiver is lifted, a common action during weaving. It’s a tiny loom, just a prototype, and Hyyppä uses it to weave a piece of discarded plastic into scarf. For the project, all the weaving materials was discarded plastic and other bits of garbage.”
This project is describe throughout the piece as post-apocalyptic, but it seems pretty solarpunk to me. Reduce, reuse, recycle!
Guerrilla Gardening is the act of illegally gardening in spaces that are not technically yours to garden, to make subversive statements, protests, or as a form of direct action. The idea goes all the way back to 1973!
In other words, guerrilla gardeners take unloved or neglected land and assign it a new purpose – to make things pretty or useful. Cities are full of waste land and unused public spaces which people walk past every day without noticing. Spaces which would look a lot better if they were green!
Some guerrilla gardeners prefer to work at night when they can be more discreet. Others are activists who’ll do so in broad daylight, when everyone can see what they’re doing. Some choose to grow flowers to make places brighter. Others choose to grow fruit or vegetables (though care should be taken not to grow anything edible in places where plants might absorb toxins).
I don’t know why I haven’t posted any guerrilla gardening things on this blog yet, and I think I should change that.
4. You might want to avoid poisonous plants. Of course, a lot of plants are poisonous in large quantities so this isn’t always of the utmost priority to completely avoid all of them. Here’s another list.
5. Does the block access to or view of important information? For example, can people still read directions or access water fountains? Consider people at all different heights from little kids to tall people.
Even while writing that, I was thinking about writing out some advice about how to be responsible about this, but it was late and I was tired. This is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind!
Anyone else have any thoughts?
r/guerrillagardening exists as a community in case anyone has questions they want to ask. It’s a pretty welcoming community (and yes I mod there).
The biggest thing when planning a guerrilla gardening project is assessing things like: 1) is it far from where you live? 2) how long do you think you’ll be living where you are ? 3) is anyone else involved in a committed way? 4) who DOES own the land? They’ll be listed in the county tax records. Do you know if they have any plans for it?
You want to figure out the time aspect, basically. There’s no point spending a lot of money and time on improving soil in a space that you know will be bulldozed in a year. But there’s things that you can grow in just a year that will be fun and beneficial. If you’re moving in a few months, hold off on the project, unless you have other people involved.
The thing that I notice most with guerrilla gardening is that the projects don’t tend to last, because they’re often fairly impulsive and not thought out, by apartment dwellers who by necessity move on.
That said, my favorite technique is to buy a bag of bird seed full of black oil sunflowers. Buy it whenever you find it cheap at the store. Hang onto it until it’s your safe planting date to plant things outdoors (you can look this up online if you don’t know). Watch your weather, and right before the next major rain storm, go out there with a stick or piece of rebar and just stab a ton of holes and drop the seeds in, cover them up, let the rain water them in. Sunflowers are native to North America and are an excellent, cheap choice for most North American guerrilla gardeners. And since you bought it as bird feed, you know the birds will enjoy it, not to mention all the people who might stumble upon it. You can go bold and public with sunflowers, people sometimes think they are Officially Sanctioned by local governments. Avoid planting in places that are sprayed with weed killer though.
If you’re feeling extra rich or generous or like you’ll be there for awhile and it isn’t going to be developed anytime soon, then you can start doing stuff like sprinkling coffee grounds around, leaves you find in bags on the curbs, whatever homemade compost you can come up with, etc. Improving the soil is actually a really important ecological act, and can have much much longer lasting consequences than just throwing some annual seeds around. Healthy soil makes for healthy plants, but it takes time to develop.
At least 28 dogs have died and another eight fallen ill after consuming poisonous pet food that is now being urgently recalled by regulators.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is recalling certain Sportmix products after batches were found to contain potentially fatal levels of aflatoxin.
Aflatoxin is a toxin produced by mold that can grow on corn and other grains used as ingredients in pet food.
Symptoms can include sluggishness, loss of appetite, vomiting, jaundice, and diarrhea. Pets may also suffer liver damage but not show symptoms, the FDA said.
Both cat and dog food products are among those being recalled. No cat or human illnesses have been reported, the FDA notes. The items were sold nationally and online.
The names and lot codes, which may be found on the back of the items, of the products being recalled are:
50# Sportmix Energy Plus Lots Exp 03/02/22/05/L2, 03/02/22/05/L3, 03/03/22/05/L2
44# Sportmix Energy Plus Lots 03/02/22/05/L3
50# Sportmix Premium High Energy Lots 03/03/22/05/L3
44# Sportmix Premium High Energy Lots 03/03/22/05/L3
31# Sportmix Original Cat Lots 03/03/22/05/L3
15# Sportmix Original Cat Lots 03/03/22/05/L2, 03/03/22/05/L3
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