Thank you, everyone that joined me on team Engie - Activate! I hope everyone had fun with this, learned new things, and possibly found some useful changes to carry forward, or ones that you maybe weren't so successful at but will keep trying (side-eye at cutting refined sugars). Hope you all had a great October!

I almost checked that I am getting nothing done today... but I'm going to transplant my tomato plant cuttings (it worked! They grew roots! At least 1 of the 3 plants did). And work on getting rid of excess belongings and try to start re-organizing my apartment.

One of my friends taught me how to make her sauerkraut a week ago... it's still going. I'm not sure mine will turn out? But I'm crossing fingers. At worst: it's closer to turning out than my first attempt years ago without hands on instruction. I've also been researching recipes for using up abundance in tomatoes (my plants never ripened enough, but a friend gave me a box full of green tomatoes. I got half to ripen to red, and half I can use green). Today is processing day.

Overall, I believe that the people's ecochallenge 2025 is going well. Although I have days where I don't reach my goals, I am becoming more conscientiously aware of my impact on the environment. I am also learning helpful tips from others.

I finally made it to a farmer's market! The one still open is about 25 minutes away from me but I enjoyed my time there. Bonus: I remembered to reach out to a friend (she recently moved back to town and I keep forgetting) and we went together. Spent 30 minutes walking around outside, meeting different vendors, and bought ingredients for numerous meals. Might go again next week ... an older gentleman had dried comfrey and raspberry leaf and I talked myself out of them.

I swear there used to be an edible food map ... Spokane Edible Tree Project (which I had saved) seems to only be about linking orchards/etc with food banks, and not about sharing where one can harvest at will. Falling Fruit is a global map. Somebody posted a guava tree in Egypt (South of Cairo/Giza area I think?) Some countries have little to no participation, some have tons. I'm not sure how current it all is.

I’ve become deeply committed to reducing my environmental impact—particularly when it comes to plastic use. Rather than relying solely on recycling, I’ve focused on repurposing plastics in creative and practical ways.

• Switched to ceramic water filters to eliminate bottled water from my routine. I learned that overproduction of plastics is a major issue, and recycling isn’t nearly as effective as it’s often portrayed. Many plastics still end up in our dumps or are incinerated, contributing to air pollution.
• Repurposed plastic containers for use in container gardening, giving them a second life instead of discarding them.
• Upgraded to titanium cutting boards to avoid plastic-based kitchen tools.
• Reused shopping bags I’ve collected over time, and when they wear out, I turn them into plarn (plastic yarn) instead of throwing them away.

I just finished watching Regaining Food Sovereignty. Despite the reminder that fry bread is NOT traditional I still love fry bread (and yeah, not healthy either, but... fry bread *heart*). I multi=tasked while watching and found Northwest Meadowscapes Native Seed. I plan on a combination of planted bulbs, container garden, and scattered wildflower seeds for my small garden patch. And as usual, if all I grow are weeds... at least something is growing! (I told neighbors that's why I let the "weeds" stay). ohhhh... i wonder, if I ask, if Indigenous Eats will make me a heart-shaped fry bread.

Wanted to share a photo from Friday when I went apple picking. This was picked from TWO trees, in about 20 minutes. Golden delicious (hidden bottom half) and whatever these red ones are. Woman with the orchard isn't sure what kinds of apples she has "granny smith, red delicious, I don't know the rest". She has a ton of golden delicious, one granny smith, some red delicious, some Jonathan or Jonagold (we suspect) and while SHE thinks the only has 4 kinds of apples, I feel she has 5 because there's one that's almost more pinkish (The prior owner has reached out to her son who planted them to see if he remembers, but she never heard back). The two trees I picked from look barely touched. I then went around to other trees and filled another mixed box, plus one bag of goldens and one bag of granny smith. Gave apples to mom, three friends, little free pantries, random strangers, three more friends are getting apples today, and mom messaged me last night that she wants more. So I'll probably go picking again.