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.