R. Peacock

My apoligies, what I was misinformed that paleo was a meat and fruit diet.

For fire ants in my container garden I waited to the end of the growing season and poured in several gallons of boiling water. In the lawn I put liquid soap, to help the 'wetting' action, on the nest before an expected heavy rain or flooding with a hose. A lye solution might work instead of soap, but consider your soil conditions and surrounding plants before adding soap or lye. I have had some success with a mixture of alcohol and liquid soap injected into the nest.

There are many good things about the paleo diet, there are also some drawbacks. For most paleo people five foot was tall and fourty was old. A strick paleo diet would not be good for growing children, a "balanced" paleo diet with more fresh veggies, some lactose, and whole grains food would be better. Also if you are on any medication, make sure your health care provider is aware of major changes in diet so they can watch and change you medication if needed. My wife when on a high protein diet and the body chemestry changes with her medications not changed almost killed her.

Richard, the North American paw paw is a temporate tree/shrub. Ours do not grow in the tropics/semi tropics.

Add all the compost you can!!!

Any kind of compost, except composted pine needles, will help bring down the PH. If the rocks are limestone removeing them will help keep the PH down. As you are sifting your soil that is a good time to add the compost, it helps keep the clay broken up.

The raised beds will drain better than a surface garden and keep your soil amendities more concentrated. In your case this could be good and bad. Draining well will allow some of the alkali to be washed out, but with windy conditions you may need to water more often. A wind break would help that.

Don't disreguard those futons, their frames can be taken apart and make good trellises for growing vines. I have parts of two futons frames waiting to support cucumbers and pole beans when the weather get warm.

When doing those brush clearing, remember wood carver would pay for large pieces of hard to find find wood and BBQers/smokers want nut and fruit wood, especially smaller pieces.

I have transplanted many seedlings found doing landscaping and flowerbed clearing. I have even gotten some seedlings while cleaning out gutters.

Make sure you get the mineral rights to the property. A low grade seam of coal under your property may not be profitable to strip mine now, but in a few years that may change.

In Kentucky and Tennessee there have been many reclaimed strip mines, some by state agencies, some by private companies such as the mines and timber growers, and some by both. Contact the state forestry service, wildlife resouce agency, and department of mines. Here is the state site for KY. http://kentucky.gov/Pages/home.aspx

Can't see it from here, yet.

Whenever I need to replace a blender I take a mason jar lid to see if it fits before I buy it.
I use a pint jar to chop onions for my homemade BBQ sauce. Put in chunks of onions and fill about 2/3 with cider vinegar, blend, and take outside to open because the aroma will be strong. The liquid makes it blend better.

If you live close enough to a municipality that does a fall leaf pick-up, contact them about dumping their shreaded leaves on your land. Down sides of this is you will have to spread it out and in some neighborhoods they will get trash with the leaves. I have found a hoe and bow rake best for spreading it out, but for your scale a front loader on your tractor would be in order.