I don't know how many filters I have built, Jow many designs I have tried. How much money I have wasted. How much further I still have to go. I have finally taken a step forward. A solid step.

What you see in my attached photo is the before and after of water that has gone through "Mud 1". This is a single pass! The cleaned water is still really hard, but potable. I should purify it before I drink it, but I didn't this batch. I really don't think I need to. It passed the color / tannin test. That means that I only have to worry about viruses, and we don't have to worry about water born vireses where I live. I only had enough materials to build one instance of  "Mud 1", and I haven't the resources to build another right now. I did manage to build "Mud 2" today. At last check, it was happily filtering. 

I really, can not stress enough how important it is to not trust something just because you find it free online. The reason things spread through the internet so freeely is precicly because it's free. One persin makes something popular, so immediately everyone has a spin. Iv'e never seen the best filters, I have found to work, online. I haven't even found the information for them online. The filters that are literally savng my life are designs that I remember from my childhoodm, and those that I figured out on my own. I went 3 days without water this month. Partly because it's been such a dry spring, and partly because i was trusting that the people making filters online knew what they were talking about. I can think of lots of horrid ways to die, but dying of thirst was not one of them. That third day was the worst day of my life. The pain was unbearable. I couldn't think beyond wishing it would rain. My tongue seemed swollen. I don't know how, or why, I survived. I do know that I am deathly afraid of a repeat. Perhaps that is why I had an extra incentive to invent and develop the "Mud" filters. Death is a powerful motivator.

It also concreted me to a small online project, It's a series of "notebooks" in which I will share working ideas. I will not be wasting a lot of space on words. The idea is that I will sell the completed books in digital form, and people can print thrm if they choose (i wou;d). You guys will have first crack, as long as the tips are there. No tips meams no interest here. so no tips means I won't post them here.