Greta Fields

C.J., here is muck solution I got from farmers in Texas:
When they build run-in sheds for horses and cows, they build the shed on top of an artificial "hill" or mound made out of eight-inch rock, then add a layer of straw.
My horse was kept on a boarding farm with Texas style run-in sheds and there was never any muck around the shed. Plus, they put it on top of a hill to start with. All the urine ran down through the rock.
I would say they spent a small fortune on rocks and gravel, but maybe you could find a free source of rocks. After awhile, the rocks get covered with a dry pad of straw and manure.

Don't know where you live, but there's a farm called Long Branch Educational Center that looks like it has diverted a stream in front of their houses to get power. They have 4 houses on microhydropower, I think. They are in Weaverville NC. I have been meaning to check out their power setup because it looks so much like my own place.

I wonder if you could filter salt out of seawater with carbon? If so, there is a YouTube video showing how you just take charcoal from a campfire, put it in the bottom of a bottle, cut the top off the bottle, and let water run through the charcoal. The guy stuffed some grass in the neck of the bottle first, to keep the charcoal from washing out.
I think the Indians were able to locate salt at the base of sandstone cliffs. If you are good at tracking deer, they will lead you to salt licks. You may get hints about where to find salt from the names of places.
When I was in Jemez National Forest, I found a salt lick used by deer once. There were 3 deer there. It was just a rocky place in the middle of a sandy ridge.

My horses ran loose in a pasture with lots of black locust around but never got sick. My sister's horse died after eating wild cherry leaves, which contain cyanide when dry. I think her horse was just bored, on low pasture., and nibbling on anything it could find. It ran to the creek and keeled over.

Bob,
I have a tree I can't find on the Internet It may be some kind of Mountain Ash, but it is not the one with berries on it. It has perfectly round fruit, yellow with red blush, bigger than golf balls. The fruit appears evenly distributed all over the tree. The leaves resemble a locust. Some locusts have red or yellow beans, so I thought it might b some kind of locust. I haven't got a clue.
I was going to call an expert to look at it last year, but next day. all fruit was gone and I couldn't find leaves on the ground. Right now, the leaves are even gone -- looks like something ate the leaves too I did not see fruit this year either. I have to get binoculars to see it...it's about 40 feet tall, very skinny tree on the edge of forest. Kentucky6

Matu,
I would take this man a copy of an article saying that the main cause of prostate gland cancer in men is suspected of being psticides.
When I was a journalist covering tobacco growing country, I met a farmer who lost both sons to brain cancer. Then he got cancer. He became head of the local farm bureau office. He suspected that tobacco spraying chemicals ("sucker control") caused the cancers. His sons were using these chemicals, which were maleic hydrazine.
The pestices and chemicals we use routinely in America are sometimes banned in foreign countries -- tobacco sprays were. The people who make them just change a molecule ever time a chemical gets banned. Then they give it a new name and start using it again.
I would be terribly anxious for my infant too. I don't know what to say. I would just plead with the man to come over and look at your damaged plants.
What goes around, comes around.....he is liable to wind up with cancer. He just never thought about this. Make him conscious of it!

I think Fukoaka began adding lime to his clay, which would produce cement almost. I made seed balls out of clay from subsoil. I put large vetch seeds in the balls. The balls just cracked, just drying out on my table, so I did something wrong. Vetch is about as big as buckwheat.
Ordering clay by mail contradicts principles of living sustainably< I think. I would not do it. I think I will try to add limestone gravel dust to the clay and see if that works. I always have a pile of gravel here for compost additives. That's not sustainable either -- I think I paid $6 for a scoop of gravel in my truck..
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