One Man's Waste is Another Man's Gold

Good soil is full of life-microbial organisms, worms and the like. It is what breaks down the organic matter and returns the nutrients back into the ground. A divine design. There were barely any trees on our Fruitland property. There are 3 mature fruit trees to the northwest of the house, one apple, two apricot. We were planting some bare roots we picked up from a nursery in Boise last weekend and noticed our neighbor doing yard work. He was raking leaves. He has a bounty of big beautiful trees over there. Later in the day he came over to catch up, seems he was curious as to our doings that day. Ty asked what his plans were for his leaves. Turns out he was going to burn them which prompted Ty to offer to take them off his hands. Next day, Ty brings back a good portion of leaves to add to our budding compost pile. The last two days, Ty has been visiting a local horse lady who has excess manure. He got to talking to her and found out she does everything organically with her horses. She even uses essential oils as fly control! He brought several loads back and we are using it to add nutrients back to the areas that were sprayed heavily with herbicide. Leaves and manure are often free, yet we've been paying $35 a yard for compost. It will be nice when we can pull compost from our own pile. It's going to be a process bringing this place back to life, but it will all be worth it. :)