I'm checking into getting my salt from the salt springs or "licks" here. My ancestors got their salt that way,and if they could, I can - I just need the know-how. Critters will trample and paw a patch of dirt near a spring, and that indicates they are licking the dirt for it's salt content coming from the spring. It means the spring has "fat" water which can be boiled down to leave the salts behind.
Lots of places just over the ridge to the north have "lick" somewhere in their name, and that indicates good place to start looking. Some places over there are so "fat" that the air smells like farts from the sulfur water, and that is "fat" water, too.
Levisa Fork of Big Sandy has so much salt in it that the water is a turquoise color, a blueish-green... but that water ain't safe to boil down for the salt due to the other chemical components (mostly PCB's) that run off from the abandoned mines into it - it has warning signs not to eat any fish caught out of it... so why bother fishing there? Instead, you have to follow the fat creeks to their source springs and look for licks there so that you get water that hasn't had a chance to be contaminated downstream.
The place I live was originally settled by two brothers who were "Long Hunters" and during their hunts they noticed an abundance of licks here, and so laid claim to the lands because of the preponderance of wildlife to be found around licks. This house used to have a well before the coal mine running underneath it cut the bottom out of the well and "sunk" it. The water from that well was so fat and sulfurish that it was nasty to drink if you weren't used to it,
The well is gone now, BUT - there is a spring popping out of the ground at the corner of the house that is pretty fat-ish, so I have high hopes of not having to travel too far - just have to dig a small reservoir to catch it in quantity, probably right in the yard, and I could be in business...
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Lots of places just over the ridge to the north have "lick" somewhere in their name, and that indicates good place to start looking. Some places over there are so "fat" that the air smells like farts from the sulfur water, and that is "fat" water, too.
Levisa Fork of Big Sandy has so much salt in it that the water is a turquoise color, a blueish-green... but that water ain't safe to boil down for the salt due to the other chemical components (mostly PCB's) that run off from the abandoned mines into it - it has warning signs not to eat any fish caught out of it... so why bother fishing there? Instead, you have to follow the fat creeks to their source springs and look for licks there so that you get water that hasn't had a chance to be contaminated downstream.
The place I live was originally settled by two brothers who were "Long Hunters" and during their hunts they noticed an abundance of licks here, and so laid claim to the lands because of the preponderance of wildlife to be found around licks. This house used to have a well before the coal mine running underneath it cut the bottom out of the well and "sunk" it. The water from that well was so fat and sulfurish that it was nasty to drink if you weren't used to it,
The well is gone now, BUT - there is a spring popping out of the ground at the corner of the house that is pretty fat-ish, so I have high hopes of not having to travel too far - just have to dig a small reservoir to catch it in quantity, probably right in the yard, and I could be in business...
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Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’