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March 11, 2017
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Updated 6/15/18
I'm still working on setting up the forum software and a gazillion options. There have been many delays, been very busy, but registration works.
Only REGISTERED users can post.
My two major goals:
- Provide information to ENJOY Mohave County to both tourists and residents.
There are so many cool things to do in this BEAUTIFUL county, but our county government doesn't care to attract tourists and new residents. It's not their job, according to District 4 Supervisor Jean Bishop.
So I'll make an effort to showcase Mohave County and especially the greater Meadview, Lake Mead, Colorado, Skywalk - Grand Canyon West area -- where I've lived since 2000.
- Provide information to make Mohave County a better place to live for all.
I'll be posting resources, such as how to report road damage to the county road department or which funeral homes to avoid at all cost (Sutton) or how to help that crazy old person down the road so we don't have more abandoned seniors decomposing for weeks before they and their pets are found.
Life can be rather grim in the desert and I would NOT have moved here in 2000 if I had known how ruthless so many people are. This is Trump country, alt right, militia ... don't look for compassion, especially not from Mohave County government.
However, I do love living my dream here:
- Permaculture gardens, fruit trees, passive and active solar
- Ever changing views of the Grand Wash Cliffs.
- Stunning sunsets.
- Dark skies and the Milky Way.
- Solitude.
- The plants, the animals, the sounds of the desert -- the Joshua Tree high desert isn't just dirt and scraggly brush, it's incredibly diverse and full of life.
- The WEATHER -- I love almost all weather, but can't stand the wind. Typical for deserts, we are experiencing many extremes -- heat, cold, wind, droughts, floods, hail, snow, ice -- from one extreme to the next. I'm almost always looking forward to the next season. I like change.
- Friends and neighbors -- when I moved in 2006, I could have moved anywhere, but decided to just move a couple miles down the road, away from traffic and noise.
Most residents don't get involved in politics, after all they moved here to retire and ENJOY life!
Many Meadview area residents are veterans and they are done fighting. So many seniors are ill and Alzheimer's is rampant (many residents live on the HORRIBLE Family Dollar food). And who really needs the frustration of politics?
I'm looking forward to my own retirement, but in 2016 I started to follow the Mohave County elections and politics, initially because the County refuses to provide emergency road clearing after major storms. I got on Facebook and it was traumatizing. The Muslim hating, the extreme partisanship, the prejudice, the lies, ...
After two years on Facebook I just can't stand it anymore.
It takes only one troll to prevent a coherent discussion and trolls are rampant. I'm sick of stupid "fake news" memes, religious quotes and the Muslim hating. Not to mention entire discussions routinely being deleted. Farcebook can be such a waste of time ...
Facebook is great for our gardening group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/HighDesertGardeningClub/, marketing and keeping in touch with friends and family, but it's NOT suitable for activism.
District 4 Supervisor Jean Bishop (Golden Valley, Dolan Springs, Meadview and part of Kingman) BLOCKED me on Facebook because I commented on her campaign posts in 2016. I had NO information about her activities until she unblocked me in 2018. Apparently she does not maintain a website and/or newsletter and the only way to get her news is to follow her on Facebook -- where she controls who can see and comment on her posts. I asked a few questions about the roads and she deleted her entire post including all comments.
Once again it's election time and it's incredible how even a judge simply deletes my questions at his FaceBook page when he doesn't want to answer.
I'll be posting my communications with supervisors, other elected officials and candidates right here for better organization.
I may not be able to change anything, but at least potential residents will be able to see that they are risking not only their livelihood, but their lives when moving out into rural Mohave County.
The Meadview fire station is at best staffed with one firefighter / EMT and he cannot transport patients by himself. Sometimes the Meadview fire station is closed. Most Meadview residents drive themselves to the hospital, but even at 100 mph, it still takes at least 45 minutes to get to Kingman. Plenty of time to bleed out or die from a heart attack or stroke.
And of course you're going nowhere if we just had a heavy rain and the roads are impassable.
I know we can do better!
Back in 2006, we had a fantastic volunteer fire department and medics with incredible response times. The more I learn about our Mohave County government, the scarier it gets. I'm 60 years old, not on a fixed income and struggling to get by -- like so many rural residents.
I'm going to do whatever I can WHILE I CAN to stop the Mohave County madness and if nothing else, DOCUMENT the extraordinary incompetence and corruption.
I hope that eventually I can enjoy my own retirement in this beautiful desert -- NOT surrounded by ruthless farmers ruining my organic gardens with their toxic sprays and NOT out of water.
All intelligent life is welcome!
This is a troll free zone.
March 11, 2017
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Happy New Year!
It's been two years since I updated here. It's another election year and I plan to make time to ask our candidates hard questions. We were just discussing on Facebook why we do what we do and here are my thoughts:
I've lived about 10 miles south of Meadview for 20 years ago -- where people go to die.
I was only 41, but trying to get away from the rat race in the Bay Area. I ended up consulting on the internet and running credit related internet forums with many thousands of members.
I didn't move to the desert to socialize, only knew a few neighbors. 11 years later I started the High Desert Gardening Club because I realized that our food became more and more toxic and that GMOs were causing so much sickness and death.
All hell broke lose with the Meadview home owner association, the MCA, when I asked to use the MCA facilities for our meetings.
I had incorporated a 501c(3) non profit. While I was an MCA member in good standing and ready to pay a security deposit for our monthly meetings, they would only allow MCA members to attend. Most of our gardeners were not MCA members. Meadview has no community center or any other venue for meetings such as grief support, cancer, whatever ...
FYI: As I attended several MCA board meetings, I learned how they violated state law, charging highly illegal late fees, they called the sheriff when I legally recorded the meetings (video) and lots of info is at the blog.
All I wanted was to bring GOOD FOOD to Meadview, help people with their gardens and educate the public about our toxic food and water. I met so many suffering people, saw so much completely unnecessary disease, illness, death.
I'm an empath, I couldn't watch that and do nothing. And you can't organize anything when you don't have a meeting place.
A bunch of elitist narcissistic ruthless people -- here it's the wealthy retirees, in the Bay Area it was the snobby techies.
My dream of living happily ever after in the beautiful desert can't turn into reality because I just can't ignore the needless pain and suffering all around me.
The bulldozing of Joshua Trees by venture capitalist Al Barbarich, all these farmers using and polluting our drinking water to grow toxic food, much for export.
For 11 years I stuck my head in the sand. I had a lot going on with my online activities and LOVED being alone, just my dog and me.
I can't unsee what I've seen. Unsmell what I've smelled.
And then there's the apathy of almost all residents.
"That's just how it is here, you have to expect that when you move to this rural area."
When I turned 60, and other people might say they'll do LESS, I decided to do as much as I can while I can.
I don't want to die like Leo:
Leo Goding 12/2/42 to 7/30/2015
At least he was found quickly and didn't have a pet. But he didn't have to die, and especially not like that. Alone, in a camper with no electric, no cooling in July, no running water, no functioning bathroom, sick with diarrhea.
I hoped to get a settlement to buy a building this year and bring some social services and a meeting room to Meadview, but now it looks like it'll be a few more years.
No shortage of things to do though.
The fruit trees are growing, they all need new water wells, deep, large and level to collect as much water as possible. I'm redesigning my irrigation outside the garden, from 1/2 inch poly to flood watering. It's a little like terracing and I just drive up with the water truck as needed for deep watering. The water runs from tree to tree and it gives me a few minutes to check on the trees and enjoy being out there.
I need a sunny and dry spring, last winter and spring were so awful. Got help on the way to make a bunch of adobe bricks for various projects, finish the chicken coop and fence it.
It's an election year. Love Andrew Yang's policies, but his campaign sucks. Hope to inspire discussion of the issues and focus on local candidates.
2016 was the first time I paid attention to local politics, had just gotten on FB (hated it), but I had to get involved because of the Muslim hating.
I'm German and I made 20 trips to the Middle East from 76 - 80. Nobody ever treated me better than the Lebanese and Syrians, whether they were Muslim or Christian. So kind, incredible hospitality, food to die for, people to die for. I won't stand for the hating and lies. Not back then and not now.
In school I was indoctrinated to never follow orders unless it was the RIGHT thing to do, for obvious reasons. We got to watch The Bridge:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052654/
I was 16 and it's one movie I remember in great detail. I'll never pray to a flag, a leader, a cow or a sphinx ...
I used to say:
I've learned so much in this life and it so sucks that I'll have to learn EVERYTHING again in my next life.
Now I realize how much I'm forgetting, even without Alzheimer's, and I have to learn things again in THIS life.
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