u/RoonilWazleeb

I had a backpacking trip planned that is now cancelled due to rain and snow forecasted. I live in Portland and I’m looking for either a base camp setup with day hiking, or an easy backpacking trip. I’m okay with either some light rain or colder weather, but not both, no snow, and not an all day downpour.

Does anyone else have ideas for this weekend they’d be willing to share? Or suggestions? Are you gonna brave the weather? What areas do you think would be the least miserable?

My backup plan if I can’t find anything closer is to drive down to the redwoods tonight since it’s the only place I can find with decent weather. No one wants to join for such a long drive, and I’m not comfortable backpacking alone, so I’d car camp. Kinda sad to travel alone too but if it comes down to that or sitting in my house all weekend in the rain… I’m going alone lol.

I’m in my late 20s and haven’t lived with my parents in 12 years. A lot of my childhood belongings are at their house, as well as some clothing. My mom has said over and over again that she doesn’t mind holding on to it.

But the problem is that she keeps dumping stuff on me, and claiming it’s mine when it’s not, and then blaming me for her hoard because of my neatly organized belongings that take up one closet in her massive house. I have all my things clearly labeled so there’s no confusion or ability to shift blame onto me (ask me why I learned I had to do this).

Every once in a while my mom will come up with a list of “my” stuff that she NEEDS to drop off at my house RIGHT NOW. She lives 45 minutes away and will drive over just to drop off a trash bag of stuff. My husband and I refuse to give her a key to our house so she insists on leaving it in my car. It feels like every time I clean my car, she decides to do another drop and I get so anxious I can’t look at the pile and it just lives in my car for a bit.

Every once in a while, an actual belonging of mine is included in the dump. But 9 out of every 10 items is something she’s convinced herself is “mine.” For example, a pair of goodwill pants she bought for me without asking. Or a bag of plastic grocery bags she thought I’d want to use as trash can liners. Or random Temu junk she bought for me without asking. Or shit from when I was in college and haven’t looked at since (a broken shower caddy I thought was long thrown out but was actually sitting in her house for 9 years).

I’ve asked her to start telling me EXACTLY what is in the pile of “my” stuff before I consent to receiving it. She has somewhat complied, but she still sneaks in a bunch of random things no matter how many times I ask her not to. Sometimes she will even buy like 6 boxes of my favorite Mac and cheese and include that. (She hoards food, her garage is like a doomsday prepper bunker, but her motivation is that when something is a good price she needs 25 of it)

I don’t want to give up all my childhood toys and memories. My husband and I have a tiny house and our garage is under renovation after a flood so our storage space is gone (this is an ongoing frustration with my husband for his lack of urgency in fixing it). My mom is essentially holding my stuff hostage and using it as an excuse to dump shit on me, because she knows I value my sentimental childhood toys.

Is she doing this intentionally to exert control? Is this hoard creep? Am I a monster for turning down gifts from my mom? On one hand I appreciate that she will buy things when she’s thinking of me, but it’s far too much.

My sister has taken the route of “everything in mom’s house belongs to her now” because she’s not as sentimental as me. She’s put all her childhood belongings into my mom’s hands because she can’t mentally handle the drama. If it gets tossed, so be it. Do I need to do this too?

I know the ideal situation is that I take all my stuff out, but I don’t feel comfortable going over there without my husband. In the past, this has turned into screaming matches and arguments about “my” mess. My mom won’t allow my husband in the house because she’s ashamed of her hoard and convinced herself he’s the villain who’s turning me against her.

Any help at all would be appreciated. I’ve been trying to break out of the hoard for 15 years and I just can’t escape the ugly grasp.

My husband and I live in Garden Home and are struggling to make friends. We’re 29, with no kids. We are both very active and love the outdoors.

We are trying to join a run club to meet people around our age in similar life positions. Is there a running club in southwest Portland? Tigard area would be great. I’ve looked through several Portland area run club lists but almost every is Hillsboro or north Portland. I found one in LO I might check out this Thursday, but it would be great to meet people in our area.

Weekday evening runs would be best because we are usually off hiking on weekends

Our family learned a scary lesson this week about salmon poisoning, so I wanted to share it with everyone I know to hopefully keep other dogs safe. This was removed from the other Portland sub for some reason? So I thought I'd share here, because it's very relevant to the Portland area.

My husband went fishing last week at Vernonia Lake and caught several trout. As he was cleaning the fish, our border collie snuck into the trash and started eating the guts. He only had a bite or two before we grabbed him and put him in a different room. Not ideal, but he's eaten worse. 6 days later, after a week of totally normal behavior, he stopped eating, was super lethargic, and was breathing at 58 breaths per minute (normal for dogs is 15-30). He also had a 106 degree fever.

We rushed him to the vet ER and they diagnosed him with "salmon poisoning." It is a parasite found in many fish in the entire Pacific Northwest, not just salmon. If untreated, it is 90% fatal. Symptoms appear 6-10 days after exposure. It is possible for a dog to get infected just by licking a raw fish, but it is most potent in the guts.

Our border collie is still in the hospital, but will likely be okay because we caught it so early. Most cases aren't caught until the dog starts vomiting, around the 4th day of symptoms. We are still very worried, but feel so lucky we noticed the change in his behavior and took him in.

I wanted to share this because many people have never heard of it! Obviously we didn't want to feed him raw fish, but we blinked and he was in the trash. Lesson learned to put him in a crate before cleaning fish in the future. Some people actually feed their dogs raw salmon/trout intentionally, because they're totally unaware of salmon poisoning. I think more people should know about it so they're not putting their dogs health at risk! Be mindful of your dog when walking by lakes/rivers with fish, especially where fishermen might be cleaning the guts, and NEVER feed your dog raw fish (especially if caught in the PNW - assume every fish is infected).

Our family learned a scary lesson this week about salmon poisoning, so I wanted to share it with everyone I know to hopefully keep other dogs safe.

My husband went fishing last week at a stocked lake in Oregon, and caught several trout. As he was cleaning the fish, our border collie snuck into the trash and started eating the guts. He only had a bite or two before we grabbed him and put him in a different room. Not ideal, but he's eaten worse. 6 days later, after a week of totally normal behavior, he stopped eating, was super lethargic, and was breathing at 58 breaths per minute (normal for dogs is 15-30). He also had a 106 degree fever.

We rushed him to the vet ER and they diagnosed him with "salmon poisoning." It is a parasite found in many fish in the entire Pacific Northwest, not just salmon. If untreated, it is 90% fatal. Symptoms appear 6-10 days after exposure. It is possible for a dog to get infected just by licking a raw fish, but it is most potent in the guts.

Our border collie is still in the hospital, but will likely be okay because we caught it so early. Most cases aren't caught until the dog starts vomiting, around the 4th day of symptoms. We are still very worried, but feel so lucky we noticed the change in his behavior and took him in.

I wanted to share this because many people have never heard of it! Obviously we didn't want to feed him raw fish, but we blinked and he was in the trash. Lesson learned to put him in a crate before cleaning fish in the future. Some people actually feed their dogs raw salmon/trout intentionally, because they're totally unaware of salmon poisoning. I think more people should know about it so they're not putting their dogs health at risk! Be mindful of your dog when walking by lakes/rivers with fish, especially where fishermen might be cleaning the guts, and NEVER feed your dog raw fish (especially if caught in the PNW - assume every fish is infected).

I’m on my 4th disappointing needle purchase with Amazon and Hobby Lobby, could use all the help I can get!

I recently started loom beading with 11/0 seed beads and I can’t for the life of me find a needle that works. I’m using a No. 10 needle from Hobby Lobby and size D thread. With the Hobby Lobby needle, I can thread it with immense difficulty - like holding my breath, need absolute silence in the house so I can focus, takes me 10+ tries.

Even after threading the needle, I struggle to pass it through the seed beads in the loom and my bracelet gets wonky from me yanking on the needle so much.

I tried ordering a collapsible seed bead needle from Amazon and the needles I ordered (that promised to fit 11/0 beads) were laughably huge and the “collapsible” eye didn’t even stand a chance at making it through.

Please please please does anyone have a recommendation for a proper needle and way to thread it?! I will pay a pretty penny at this point, because if I can’t find a solution I’m tossing the loom. This was supposed to bring me peace but my heart rate SPIKES just thinking of threading the needle lol

I’m posting on behalf of my husband who’s planning a solo backpacking trip through the Wind River, Wyoming area this summer. He’s extremely experienced with backpacking and mountaineering, so that’s not an issue.

We are from the PNW and he has never had to worry about grizzlies (except for a trip to the Selkirks where grizzlies are supposedly rare, but a few members of his group were bluff charged by a mama grizzly).

He is planning about 6 days, only about 8 miles a day so that he can spend evenings fishing. He will be taking our 7 year old border collie.

Is this a safe trail to do solo with a dog, grizzly bear wise? He has bear spray, knows how to use bear bags/canisters, and researched if he should take a gun but saw most people advise against. I’m not worried about his abilities at all, just bear danger. The news from Yellowstone this morning spooked me enough that I thought I’d ask. Thank you!