Detroit

Good to hear from you Detroit but sorry that your situation is so awful. Please keep us updated if you can. Take care.

Safeish. Much safer than many. When I can see a non firey route open I'll get out. I think i'ld be in more danger if I try and leave right now. Very smokey to hazardous levels, but the fires are currently a ways off. We need rain very badly and no more wind!

Detroit. Hope you are safe.

Not great. Very smoky. Still camping. Pandemic plus this disaster ...not great. Hope you are all well.

Hi @Detroit how are you?

I think I've decided to leave tomorrow instead of paying another week.

I'm sorry about the glum. Hope you find a better spot, soon. And do keep checking in here.

Ive got well water, the guy who rented me the spot said it's clean. I'm not sick yet, so I think it's fine. I fill jugs up, let em stand in the sun. Possibly should pick up water purifier tabs, i guess. I'm not over in the Midwest currently, but that's very kind to offer.

The diet is pretty healthy, yes, allergies save me from myself! I'm trying to up my calorie intake. I don't really get hungry as just feel weak.

I'm doing better than I sound. I'm just glum, and this spot is not very nice, right on a busy road, and the other people on the acre...

I really wish I could help, Detroit. I have family in (if you're in Michigan) the next state over. If you're stuck, they are genuinely lovely people and would, I'm sure, be able to help out with a hot shower and some food.

FWIW, it sounds like you're eating a healthier diet than many people. Have you got access to clean water?

I grew up in cities, Winesalot. Dirty,noisy cities. I longed for some remote place without people. I'll do exactly what I want while I'm still on this Earth.

I've horrible dangerous severe food allergies, so my options are limited. I'm doing ok. Bit scrawny, need to get weight on, but ok. I ration out my allergy chocolate to three squares a day. Two apples. Sugar. Three tea bags maximum. Two scoops of milk. I got some organic veggies in my bags, so I usually make boiled veg, two eggs, or a can of sardines. No lunch. If I get too lacking in calories, I'll eat sugar from the bag. It gets tough sometimes.

I'm grateful for what i do have.

And I think I could probably live on chocolate and veges.

Ugly veg = tasty veg.

You sound sorted. I remember growing up on powdered cow’s milk. My mum would sometimes run out before her fortnightly grocery run. I also remember as a kid my dad making me hold the legs of the scrawny chook (chicken) that we were destined to eat for Sunday roast. It is a wonder that I am not vegetarian myself to be honest. Plucking was worse. But as farm kids, you knew not to make pets of the chickens or cows.

Sheep no. Looked at deer with slight blood lust when I ran out of food and had a lean few days before I could get out to town. I like fishing, but just don't have what it takes to hunt animals. I've plenty of potatoes and carrots and pumpkin, onions, cans of sardines, dried goat milk and tea bags. Big bag of sugar. I'm doing great. Even got eggs and a bit of cheese in my cooler. It's wierd but ok. 3 bars of chocolate left. I'm grateful for what I have.

The kind people at the grocery store fixed me up with a lot of discounted $1 bags of ugly veg.

I can certainly understand being worried. Hopefully though you have enough food without resorting to looking mouthwateringly at the sheep!

Yeah, cutting a short hair cut is not that easy is it! Mines very short but not bald. Chilly though! Very easy to clean and dries in seconds.

Flush bathroom! I dream of that! And hot showers! I miss my old camps!

This is my longest stint with no shower since I left. Makes me feel kinda scuzzy.

I decided that if things get worse here, I'll drive to my plan b. Haul water. I'm a bit scared at this point.

I thought of you as I used the clippers on my husbands hair this afternoon. Only my second time I have cut it and I got over confident. I cut a chunk out of his fringe. Luckily it is quite thin in the front and it will be kinda hidden. He spends most of his days on video conferences for work so I am interested to see if anyone notices . I could have just taken it all off like you did.

What a shocker Chad was though! Glad you found out before heading there though.

Shame about not having a fire. That and a flush loo and I am set. Our family are ‘car campers’ but I am happy to be rustic with the site as long as I have a flush loo and a fire am happy.

Hope you can keep warm and dry Detroit.

Noone is having fun right now I know. I'm sorry I'm not cheerier.

No idea. Chad's place was nice by the photos, but total prick.

I'm used to being able to move on.

Electric I can do without, I've lanterns. Bathroom I can cope without. No well. I guess at least as long as we have electric here the well works.

Miserable for us all. I'm kinda writing again, picked up my guitar and started on a song. Keeps me amused. I found spring very hard.

Cities are definitely not a good idea. Somewhere where you can have a campfire would be good but water is essential The pandemic could get worse yet and it's not going to be over soon :(

All is quiet out here. Quiet, cool and rainy.

I'm still looking for a more suitable camping spot. I don't think I'm going to find one. People just keep replying telling me to go into the more built uo areas, that they want someone with more picturesque equipment, or that I need to go home because there's a pandemic. I explain I live like this, I've not been out of the area. This area is my home. They just don't listen or comprehend. The area im in has an outbreak now of covid.

I don't feel safe here. Half considered going into an area with no water, bathroom or electric, very remote. Water has to be driven in. I hear people are not being moved on.

The last thing I'll do willingly is go into a city.

Feeling very down. The weather's rainy and stormy. No campfires allowed here either.

Sounds like an event, yet not real successful trip into town there Detroit. Chad sounds like a pearl of a man! A charmer. Hopefully you will have less fireworks and shooting tonight.

The store assistant sounds like they are a bit of a loon. I am sure I would have probably downed shopping and left too when confronted like that.

At least you got home safely Detroit. I’d certainly need a strong cup of tea by then. Have a good night and hope the sheep provide some entertainment!

...I was thinking about whether i actually really hate men. It's easy shorthand, isn't it...everyone knows what you mean. Ok, so it's not a good look for the PR of the feminist collective, but when we are being raped, murdered, abused, our abusers given access to us against our will, do we really care what men think, or how it looks?

To be frank, I couldn't care less what men as a group think of me.

There are men I like, love, am related to in some way. I hear news of good men, decent sons of mothers. Good husbands.

So I think I'll settle for, I would very much appreciate not having to be forced to deal with men that I don't wish to deal with. Ild settle for abusers stopping hurting, killing and raping my sisters. Ild settle for an uneasy entente. The last straw recently was reading about a woman having her coronavirus symptoms dismissed by male medics as a panic attack. She sadly passed. How can we NOT hate a system that hurts us and our children?

They won't allow us our women only spaces. So perhaps they can all go live on Mars or something. War, and fight, put money and power first. Take their handmaidens with em. Anywhere, just not near me. I just want a space to feel safe in. I don't think it's too much to ask. I'm pretty easy to please, remote, water, some access to sewer or a pit bathroom. I don't even need electric. And I make no apologies for hating the man who destroyed my life and happiness.

I don't hate men in general. I just want to be safe from the society of men as a class, and not have to be subject to a world order that does not benefit me and my sisters.

I have way too much time to think.

Gave myself an ice cream headache minus the ice cream washing in cold water. Must be less lazy, and use up some propane. Brr. At least the weather is nice.

How's the wierdness in the UK?

Hello. I've been introduced to the wonders of father Ted by Oldstyle, so after yesterday's shop I watched craggy island on my phone.

It is not fun out there. Exhibit a, woman coughing on public phone handset. I made a 😲 face and decided i didn't want to mess with her. She looked totally normal. Wtf is wrong with people!
Responded to an advert in Craigslist for a space, only to be told he was not renting camping because of governors orders. Then why fucking advertise! Men. Fucking men. It was more my camping equipment ain't fancy enough and I told him where to go on the skinny-dipping . Besides, trust me, ild scare the dang horses. If any of you are interested in Chad's emails ild happily rant. He can shove his hippy faux free love shit where the sun don't shine.

See this is why I am so antisocial! I actually love people. Except the world is full of Chad's ruining everything.

Also got verbally accosted by some grocery store worker. She didn't recognize me, not a local or regular (I destest that store but they had stuff I needed). I got a full on rant about no traveling or vacationing. I'm not camping for fun. It is my home. I got a bit upset, left my stuff and walked out.

Things are a bit sparse. Supply chain seems broke. No kitchen paper, bathroom tissue was double the usual price. No dried milk (keeping things cold is a real problem). I got a slightly wierd selection of supplies, and got out of dodge. Kept on singing that Bob Dylan's song about Billy they don't like you to be so free. I'm by far not the wierdest person out. Though more pathetic than cool at this point in life.

People are driving wierd. I had someone overtake me on a really dangerous one land each way road, with no overtaking allowed. They almost went head on into a car the other way. I clocked him and slowed down, but he forced the guy on the opposite side off the road and to a standstill. Thank God there was room to pull over. A bit before or after the only way off the road is down a mountain side. People are driving wrecklessly and aggressively. I think everyone is angry about the situation and it's coming out in their driving.

..zebra! I'm so sorry to hear how wierd stuff is for you and yours. It's heartbreaking. The people in charge had intelligence on this in November/December I'm reading. But they let it happen, profits before people every time for these men!The entire political system needs dismantling and starting again. I'm not up for war with China (not got a political bone in my body)! Women need a greater say. Get these insulated pricks out of power, and run countries compassionately. There's no compassion, it's all the profit of the few and the servitude and suffering if the many....in short, keep your chin up too, thinking and praying for you too, zebra. Try not to exhaust yourself!

Hello bananamush! It's all going wrong here, hope you stay safe. If I'm back with chipmunks I'll set that up and take some photos. I'm watching the situation in grants, new Mexico with the mayor threatening rebellion against the state. I fear if he pushes it it might go very wrong. That's the kind of thing I fear the most. We really don't want that kind of disorder spreading. Stay safe!

Hello Detroit, I haven't posted on this thread before but have been following it. I suspect there are many more of us rooting for you than you realize, who don't post here. I'm an ex-pat American, I miss the awesome nature of America so much, but the more news from the states that I hear, the more lucky I feel to be an ex-pat.

If you get some chipmunks again, I recommend rigging some peanuts in the shell on strings and such to watch how incredibly ingenious they are at getting to them...top shelf entertainment. (Wish I had pictures.)