SPAM - from a can not your email inbox

It's been a while since I've posted here, mostly due to focusing on launching my online book selling website http://www.antiquarianbooklounge.com/ . And since we have had no rain here in several weeks there hasn't been much glass or other interesting things being coughed up.

However, I recently saw some rusted metal sticking out of the ground and dug it up to find that it was a can of SPAM in it's previous life. Although it was flattened and rusted I could still see and read the SPAM label clearly.

It got me wondering about the contents of the can. When was SPAM created? What is really in it? Who ate it? How was it prepared? And how did it end up in what is now my yard?

I found the answer to some of these questions by visiting the world of Spam, starting with a time line from its creation in 1937 (history of SPAM: Spanning The Decades), what it's made out of, the SPAM museum, the SPAM mobile, and anything else you could ever want to know about SPAM.

Yes, we ate SPAM (although it was many, many decades ago) in our family back in my younger days. We even had a recipe for "SPAM burgers", kind of an open face burger bun with SPAM cut into pieces, relish, cheese, mayo, broiled for a few minutes to melt the cheese. At least that is what I can recall, although I probably still have the recipe somewhere. If someone wants it let me know and I can probably find it.

It will be interesting to get an approximation of the date of this and other dump sites on my land as the earth coughs up what was once dumped and buried here.

Thanks for reading,


Jill

Jill@AntiquarianBookLounge.com
http://www.antiquarianbooklounge.com/
MySpace URL: http://www.myspace.com/antiquarianbooklounge
MySpace Blog: http://blog.myspace.com/antiquarianbooklounge

Moving from the city to the country

At the end of 2005 I left my job as Manager of a corporate library in a global human resources consulting firm in the Washington D.C area. Over time the job had became more about negotiating and dealing with vendors of information products and less about research, my first love and passion.

I decided to make a change and create a completely different life and lifestyle. I was off to create the next chapter in my life and I had no idea what it would be. It was a leap of faith and the universe was there to support me. I spent the first half of 2006 researching and exploring possible career options.

In June of 2006 I spent a week in southern Ohio at Hope Springs Institute volunteering, cleaning, cooking, helping out with some large groups. Located in Adams County, Ohio the rural farming community reminded me of summers spent in rural Utah on my grandparents farm.

Through a series of FORTUNATE events I found a beautiful log cabin home (only 5 years old) on 20 acres of land. The land includes a few acres of pasture, a large ravine, two waterfalls, hundreds of trees and a couple of horse trails.

I moved into my new home in late September and set about getting settled in as winter arrived.. With the ground covered in snow and ice and temperatures at or below freezing there wasn't incentive for me to spend time outside.

In March when the snow melted and I started spending time walking the land and seeing signs of new plant life I noticed bits of broken glass here and there. It seemed everywhere I looked there were pieces of broken glass.

As I started picking them up and sometimes digging a little deeper I even found bottles that were unbroken. The previous owners had told me they had found glass and things on the land and had hauled truckloads of it off.

I ran into a friend who has lived here all her life at the Post Office one day and I asked her about the property where I live and if there was ever a dump site here. She thought a minute and said, yes about 40 years ago people used this land as a dump site. Well, that explained the broken glass and rusted tin cans I'd been finding as I walked this land.

And then it occurred to me that Mother Earth was coughing up all this "trash/garbage" that had been thrown and buried here. Some had been purposely dumped here and some is just thrown out the window as people drive by.

I found myself feeling that I wasn't going to pick up and dig all this "trash/garbage" up only to put it back into the earth in a landfill somewhere else. That doesn't make sense.

So I'm starting this blog to write about my findings of "trash/garbage" that Mother Earth is coughing up and my journey of searching out recyclers and creative people who will use it in their art or in producing recycled materials.

I'm also going to blog about my learning's regarding the environment, this land, the plant and animal life that lives here and living in harmony with this planet.