Once upon last week (or was it the week before? my e-mail inbox has become a treacherous slope, move just one smooth gray pebble and the whole avalanche will come down on my head, best to just give it a good 10-meter radius) a Click Clack Gorilla reader (whose own blog you can find here) sent me an e-mail with some questions about dumpster diving. And I figured if she wanted to know, then maybe others might want to know too, and by the way I really love it when you folks send me questions because then I know what it is I have yet to tell you and posts begin to accumulate at a rate almost equivalent to that of unanswered e-mails in my inbox. Which is awesome because as you might have noticed I haven’t exactly been prolific lately.

And what did said reader want to know about dumpster diving? Well.

Here is the deal. I see the food you get out of the trash and it all looks perfectly fresh and lovely. The problem is, I have OCD and my main issue is food “cooties.” Even with commercially purchased food I sometimes get skeeved out and have to purge. This wastefullness upsets me but my fears win every time. I have no trouble with used clothes, salvaged furniture, and I even have a bedspread (that I love) I picked up in a thrift store. But I won’t even buy food at the dollar store for fear it has been cast out for potential ickyness.

I was wondering if you ever worry about “cooties” in the food you source from the trash. Do you find stuff in dumpsters? Is it wrapped up? Have you ever gotten sick from found food?

Me, well, I’m pretty much the opposite of a germ-o-phobe. I like to think of any stray bacteria that gets into my food as an extra boost for my immune system. (There is doctorly truth in this too, I have been told.) I have eaten a hell of a lot of dumpster dived food in my day, and I’ve never gotten sick. I have tabled dived the leftovers of strangers, and I’ve never gotten sick. And my stomach is not made of steel, oh no, in fact it’s a manic, moody fucker (hellooo, IBS). I’ve never eaten meat out of a dumpster, as I don’t really eat meat much (we’re talking like once a year here, and then I get it organic at the market), though I imagine that is a more slippery slope cootie-wise.

I think it’s important to trust your senses. Your eyes and your nose are the best for telling you if something’s still good, right? That’s how I do it, and like I’ve said, I’ve had a very clean record of dumpster health. Cootie free. If something tastes or smells funny, don’t eat it. And if you find 300 packages of bacon in the dumpster, check the web to see if there’s been a health-issue-related recall before you stuff it all down your hungry snout.

If you’ve never been dumpster diving for food, you’d probably be surprised at how non-skeevey the whole process is. In Germany, for example, stores separate all the organic food from the rest, so you’re looking at a huge pile of veggies, not veggies mixed with the regular gross trash. But I’ll take veggies that have ended up in the gross part too, but those get a very thorough washing. And considering pesticide use, that’s a good idea no matter what, bought or dumpstered, I say.

Have any of you ever gotten sick from dumpster dived food? What guidelines do you follow to make sure nothing spoiled ends up on your plate?

Cleaning out Frankenshed the other week, I got out my camera and starting snapping pictures of all the little trash-treasure tidbits I had waiting in there for me. And here, a small selection of the things I found too bland to get a dumpster find of the week post all to themselves, but too awesome not to at least briefly mention.

What have you found recently? Has spring been bringing new dumspter finds into your house, or things you’ve been decluttering out? What do you do with things you don’t want or need anymore?

These days when I lay in bed looking out of the window, the branch that the little bird lands on to shake off the water from his bath is dotted in tiny leaves. There are seeds in the ground in the garden, the first tulip bloom has burst, and the days of wood stove lighting are long past.

The weekend brought tornadoes: music tornadoes and flea market tornadoes and amazing concert tornadoes. It’s the perfect time of year for thinking and walking, headphones in their place. I wish that music was always free, that all the musician money was in concerts. After Metallica murdered Napster I didn’t bother relearning how to download (free) music.

I have been daydreaming, and as I do, the spring cleaning just sort of takes care of itself. I patch up holes with a borrowed sewing machine and as I sweep out the last layer of dust the setting sun shines in through the picture window. In the middle of a sentence the book falls to the floor. I dream of a library that is a river, capable of quenching my thirst.

What is your soundtrack for spring?