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Planning the Homestead Orchard  Plant the wrong trees, or plant in the wrong place, and it may be a 10-year mistake that you may never get to make right.

The Homestead Cookbook  A  searchable online cookbook loaded with homesteader's recipes and growing every day.

Clearing Land for Pasture Meadow Creation 101

The Simplest House of All The first house should provide all the bare necessities, but few frills.   

Clean Your Water With Dirt

by Ted Praast  

Water… a requirement for life on earth.  The purity of water determines, to a large degree, our health as humans.  So we, in most cases, depend upon the processing of water to survive in good health.  Our cities are charged with this processing, and mostly water quality is not questioned.  In some localities, only after an outbreak of water-borne disease is detected, people are told to boil water.  Those who have wells or springs depend upon natural processes to purify their water. 

So, what is in that water?  And how is it purified?  Can we actually depend on good, healthy water coming out of that tap? 

In some cases, we can depend on it.  But not always, and much of the time municipal water supplies have chemicals many people don't really want.  The normal purification process uses these chemical means to kill off the bad bugs, with some filtration.  It's also true that normal methods such as chlorine aren't very effective against certain viruses.  So there are always trace amounts of nasties in municipal supplies, and in many cases the same is true for well water.  Usually water supplies are derived from ground water, usually aquifers.  This includes individual wells.  Think about that.  For many years, people have been dumping waste out on the ground, spraying crops, raising cattle and other livestock, and so on.  That waste will eventually find its way to the aquifers.  Almost always, we depend on natural processes to purify the waste into potable water.  Unfortunately, natural purification doesn't always work on chemicals used in farming operations such as bug sprays and so forth, not to mention companies that intentionally dump chemical waste.  Nor does the natural filtration always work on biological contaminants such as coliforms. 

Water filtration is a big business.  There are numerous types of filtration devices available.  Among these are ceramic filters, ceramics with activated carbon, carbon, micron filters, and on and on.  Probably the best of these filters are reverse osmosis, but these offer disadvantages: they are slow and removal of chemicals is questionable.  A good system would consist of reverse osmosis coupled with activated charcoal to remove most of the bad stuff.  Such a system would, in least expensive form, provide a homestead with only drinking and cooking water of high quality.  And these can be quite costly.  An effective whole house filter can cost upwards of two thousand dollars of your hard earned money. 

How about that stagnant pond, the one that grows mosquitoes and so forth?  What natural purpose can it possibly have?  Well, here's an answer.  That pond is the breeding ground not only of annoying little blood sucking creatures, but also it breeds numerous other little predators.  Those predators are the ones that actually clean up water that eventually finds its way into the aquifers.  This amalgam of life consists of various bacteria, fungi, various protozoa and rotifera, and a plethora of other small life.  These creatures feed upon other organisms, many being harmful to us.  But that standing water cannot be consumed, since it contains many very harmful critters. 

But we can take that water, or river or spring water, lake water, or shallow well water and filter it to make good water fit for consumption.  We pump the water through a micron filter, put it through a carbon filter for chemicals, and we can use it to take a shower.  Some we'll put through a reverse osmosis filter for drinking or cooking, and we're safe - mostly.  By this time, we've put hundreds or thousands of dollars into the filtration system. 

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