I have a story to tell and you may want to listen and you may not, that is totally up to you.
Mine is a story of survival: mine, yours and all creatures.
I inherited a farm from my grandmother, really I guess it came from my parents to me, but at one time it belonged to my grandmother. I like to think of it that way. I was close to my grandmother. She loved me and taught me things.
 Things through time and education have been deemed unnecessary. 
When I first moved out here in the wilds of the country I had no intention of doing anything  but mowing the yard and living in the house. It went years like this, the property thrived and grew wild. I felt a sort of  kinship with King Arthur, as long as I done well the land done well.

Flowering trees and bushes of every color and description grew from the ground. Wild  herbs in abundance. Fruit trees my grandparents and parents planted flowered each spring and produced fruit each summer, and still I worked in the concrete jungle to make the fiat money.
The deer came, the opossums, the skunks, the squirrels and so on.
Each fed in their own turn, and I enjoyed watching. But I never fed from the abundance of food that grew wild on my property.

The winters were cold and the wood burning stove filled the house with warmth and the  smell that only can be had with the burning of a life given. Some will laugh at such a phrase and some will not understand. But if you live with mother nature amongst the trees you surely will.

The best burning firewood species:

 Hickory - 25 to 28 million BTUs/cord - density 37 to 58 lbs./cu.ft.
    Oak - 24 to 28 million BTUs/cord - density 37 to 58 lbs./cu.ft.
    Black Locust - 27 million BTUs/cord - density 43 lbs./cu.ft.
    Beech - 24 to 27 million BTUs/cord - density 32 to 56 lbs./cu.ft.
    White Ash - 24 million BTUs/cord - density 43 lbs./cu.ft.

 Five Poorest Performing Species
White Pine - 15 million BTUs/cord - density 22 to 31 lbs./cu.ft.
    Cottonwood/Willow - 16 million BTUs/cord - density 24 to 37 lbs./cu.ft.
    Basswood - 14 million BTUs/cord - density 20 to 37 lbs./cu.ft.
    Aspen - 15 million BTUs/cord - density 26 lbs./cu.ft.
    Yellow Poplar - 18 mm million BTUs/cord - density 22 to 31 lbs./cu.ft

The water that gave life to the property and myself came from the sky and leached through a Mother Nature made water filter, down through the earth it flowed, into an underground mine shaft 150 feet below the surface of the earth, a well my grandparents had witched for them.

Witching For Water

http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/witching-...

 Years, a hundred years or more ago, coal was found in this area of the United States. That is how I have such quality drinking water.

How to Dig a Well on Your Homestead Property

http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/how-to-dig-a-well-zmaz70jazgoe.a...

Activated Carbon is created by heating Charcoal to very high temperatures under oxidizing conditions, (most often in the presence of CO^2). By very high, I am talking 600 -1200 degrees Celsius. This drives off all of the volatile compounds and leaves a lattice of carbon. The pores created in this process are so small that they are able to attract and hold the organic molecules that try to pass through.

This is done by Van der Waals force. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_der_Waals_force

 Van der Walls is an attraction at the molecular or sub-molecular level. In order for it to occur the molecules must be in direct contact. This is possible because of the extraordinarily small size of the pore in the activated carbon. As an interesting side note this is the same force  that allows a Gecko to walk up a pane of glass.

As for anyone saying that activated Charcoal is of no real use, you should ignore them, because they have no idea what they are talking about. On average, granulated activated carbon contains so many pores that there are 500 square meters of surface area per gram. Powdered activated carbon has even more. That translates into a very large capacity to capture and hold impurities.
Anyone that says my charcoal is not activated carbon you are wrong, because the heat and force put upon this substance by the earths movement in this region (a region known for its folding and volcanic activity) is beyond anything man could ever create. The pressure,  heat and movement has turned this  substance from solid to powder to solid again. Therefore; it has been activated, many times over.
At one time, my well served three different houses. It is a good well and I treat it to a new  string filter as often as is needed. This way the grit and gravel travel no further, up the pipes into the house.
In the hot (116 degrees was last summers high)

summer time with little or no rain (like the last couple of years) coming our way the well complains a little by turning my white clothes a little dingy. I understand the complexity of such things.  This is a simple reminder to me, from my well that I need to be a little more conservative with my water usage.

I grew up in a simple lifestyle,
so this was no great stretch for me, for some it may be. The ones of us that have never had to worry about clean drinking water or availability will not understand this until one day they run out of water. Water, is the life of our planet and for the things that grow on it.

United States

 Drinking Water Quality in the United States
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets standards for tap and public water systems under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).[43] The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates bottled water as a food product under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA).[44] Bottled water is not necessarily more pure, or more tested, than public tap water.[45] There is evidence that the United States federal drinking water  regulations do not ensure safe water, as some of the regulations have not been updated with more recent science. Dr. Peter W. Preuss, who became the head of the U.S. EPA's division analyzing environmental risks in 2004, has been, "particularly concerned", and has faced controversy in studies which suggest that regulations against certain chemicals should be tightened.[46]

In 2010 the EPA showed that 54 active pharmaceutical ingredients and 10 metabolites had  been found in treated drinking water.

An earlier study from 2005 by the EPA and the Geographical Survey states that 40% of water was contaminated with nonprescription pharmaceuticals, and it has been reported that of the 8 of the 12 most commonly occurring chemicals in drinking water are estrogenic hormones.[47] Of the pharmaceutical components found in drinking water, the EPA only regulates lindane and perchlorate. In 2009, the EPA did announce another 13 chemicals, hormones, and antibiotics that could potentially be regulated. The decision on whether or not they are sufficiently harmful to be regulated may not be decided upon until 2012 as it takes time for testing.

On June 24, 2013, researchers from Duke University reported detecting methane in drinking water in Pennsylvania and claim "serious contamination from bubbly methane is 'much more' prevalent in some water wells within 1 kilometer of gas drilling sites".

The researchers noted that methane levels were "an average of six times" higher and ethane levels were "23 times higher" in the water wells, "closer to drilling sites, compared with those farther away."[48]

Link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water#United_States

You can not raise livestock or grow vegetables without clean water.

  Your body itself is made up almost entirely of water.

 The amount of water in the human body ranges from 50-75%. The average adult human body is 50-65% water, averaging around 57-60%. The percentage of water in infants is much higher, typically around 75-78% water, dropping to 65% by one year of age.
Body composition varies according to gender and fitness level, because fatty tissue contains less water than lean tissue. The average adult male is about 60% water. The average adult woman is about 55% water because women naturally have more fatty tissue than men. Overweight men and women have more water, as a percent, than their leaner counterparts.
The percent of water depends on your hydration level. People feel thirsty when they have already lost around 2-3% of their body's water. Mental performance and physical coordination start to become impaired before thirst kicks in, typically around 1% dehydration.
Although liquid water is the most abundant molecule in the body, additional water is found in hydrated compounds. About 30-40% of the weight of the human body is the skeleton, but when the bound water is removed, either by chemical desiccation or heat, half the weight is lost.

Link;

http://chemistry.about.com/od/waterchemistry/f/How-Much-Of-Your-Bod...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body

Water is being controlled by agents and intities that are only visible when you look at the big picture of what is really going on. The ground above the worlds aquifers is being puchased by powerful families.
 WMR's Paraguayan sources have confirmed that George W. Bush bought 42,000 hectares (over 100,000 acres) of land in Paraguay's northern "Chaco" region,in 2006. 

The land, near the town of Chaco,  sits atop huge natural gas reserves, according to sources in Asuncion.
Moreover, the land deal was consummated in a dinner meeting between Bush's daughter Jenna and Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte.
Although Jenna, who was in Paraguay under the cover of a 10-day UNICEF trip to visit child welfare projects, put the Bush family seal of approval on the land deal, the actual legal papers were worked out by Bush family lawyers and business representatives. Jenna Bush is supposedly working for UNICEF in Panama City.
The Bush land is close to a new U.S. military installation, the Mariscal Estigarribia Air Base.
It is also nearby a huge tract of land purchased by Sun Myung Moon that sits astride Latin America's largest water aquifer, the Guarani aquifer.
According to earlier Madsen reports, Bush and the Carlyle Group are also the owners of major tracts of land along the proposed U.S. super-highway linking Mexico and Canada (below image) land that will be worth hundreds of millions more when the highway is completed.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_bush53...

To be continued.