Hello everyone,

I realized that I forgot to post a link to Earth Works in case readers want to get a better understanding of just how amazing this place is. http://www.cskdetroit.org/EWG/.

On Thursday I woke up pretty early after having stayed up pretty late with a lot of the collective hanging out by the wood stove. Nights here are really fun since the house is so cold everyone hangs out in one of the three rooms that have wood stoves and then around 2 or 3 makes a mad dash for their covers. Anyway, after waking up I made some breakfast and went out to get some groceries. Just like most walks out of the house, I can’t leave without deciding whether it’s time to explore a little further or go in a new direction. I walked through a lot of the neighborhoods that one were. Everything abandoned for blocks, huge vacant lots all around you with people scattered through the streets. While the images of these parts of the city are supposed to be haunting, I found them rather endearing. I circled around behind the stadium and went to the downtown area for the first time. I had heard some people talking about how weird the developments downtown had been the past couple of years. It was a New York city wanna-be huge street. Big bars with businessmen and the likes enjoying heavy food while beggars waited outside. This was not the nice shopping area that complemented the street interspersed through the neighborhoods. This was a murder of the neighborhoods!

I stopped off at a work clothes store and found a pair of overalls in my size which I was pretty excited about. I headed home after that. The walk ended up being about 8 or 10 miles. I ate some organic wheat crackers with some peanut butter made from local Detroit zen monks (I have plans to check this place out later) with some sunflower sprouts on top. I headed out to Back  Alley Bikes after the grub. Back Alley is the top floor of a huge bike shop called the hub (http://thehubofdetroit.org/). They salvage bikes and parts from every where. There were probably over 3,000 bikes in tact with organized and un-organized parts everywhere! I only snapped two pictures because I was having so much fun but this place is incredible. They run a lot of awesome programs for little kids through adults, teaching them how to fix and build bikes. At the end of the program you get to keep your bike. The work I helped with was mostly striping parts and organizing them into ones that were junk or should be kept.

After having way too much fun at Back Alley,  The Hub announced that it was having sprint races down at a local place at nine. I came back to Trumbull and ate some way to much food and headed over. Only about five people showed up for the races but it was fun to try out the stationary bike hooked up to the computer and just hang out. I came back to the Trumbull at around midnight and hung out with the collective till about 2. I don’t have anything planned for today but Saturday I’ll be helping The Hub again in the morning and then either going to another farm to help out or to a protest in support of Planned Parenthood whose federal funding is getting cut.

Peace,

Henry