I will suggest that you are making the essential point you quoted ... "unless you need to increase soil calcium levels". If you do, then gypsum is a fine product. If you either don't need to increase soil Ca levels, or they are already high, then there can be detrimental effects when those levels are further increased by the addition of Ca. The good thing for you is that acidic, sandy soils will tend to counter any reasonable excesses you may create on the short-term. Back to the subject of drywall as a gypsum source -- for anyone who wants to know what is typically in gypsum board the easy solution is to do a simple search using the terms 'gypsum board msds'. Nearly every US manufacturer of gypsum board has an msds available for viewing. There are many variations, but the basics are the same. Here is one list for the "hazardous ingredients" in gypsum wallboard panels from American Gypsum: ⢠Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate), 80-100 % ⢠Paper (Cellulose), 1-10 % ⢠Starch, 0-1% ⢠Boric Acid, 0-1% ⢠Potassium Sulfate, 0-1% ⢠Vermiculite, 0-1 % ⢠Glass Fiber, 0-1 % ⢠Paraffin Wax, 0-2 % ⢠Crystalline Silica, 0-0.5 % Other than the potential for boron contributions, which is typically quite small, there isn't much to be concerned about in drywall or gypsum board that doesn't exist with gypsum as a soil additive. Here is a link that might be useful: Gypsum board msds

A little trivia Tox. When patrol officers in the United Kingdom carried wood night sticks/batons,Black Locust was prefered for amoung other things,the sounds that resonates when it stricks something. Sue I think we may have made the resprout issue sound even worse than it actually is. For the most part sprouts emerge from newer growth (small green twigs and limbs). Having seen many willow blowen over or uprooted on eroading stream banks,few sprouts emerge from other than roots and smaller limbs. while it's true for sprouts to grow on trunks of downed willow, roots are intact and in or very near water.and not in numbers that can't be controlled. As you recall I cut stumps off trees we pulled out. While I did have benifit of heavy equipment while uprooting and tractor while mowing and working dirt,I had a bunch of trees to deal with. Chain sawing and leaving a stump with roots on the pond bank would have made stump far more difficult to kill compared to if it were on dry ground. My main question about your ability to mow over new sprouts is if the electric mower is up to the task. You also have chemicals if things start getting out of hand,no could do next to cattle's drinking water and fish in pond. I did notice sprouts were most previlent where soil caved into pockets exposing limbs to sun. I havn't tryed it but feel black plastic would controll new growth where soil is too thin to block 100% sun. One thing is certain,a willow carcass rots much faster than oak,pecan and such. How many them sticker trees you gonna need?

kimmsr et al - can you please expand on what you mean by the work that goes into mixing dairy into compost piles? I'm not too clear on why I shouldn't add milk, yoghurt, cheese, even meats to my piles. Of course I know about the argument that those items attract animals, but I've got animals anyway -- and out here in the country, I don't much care. It'd be different if I still lived in a town. Anyway, so far, I've been adding chicken & duck skins and bones, bits of uneaten meat, uneaten or spoiled cat food (I give them only a particular formulation of a particular brand -- organic pheasant). I also add dairy products. And I've just brought home quite a lot of unused or partly used sour creams or maybe they're yoghurts, and so on -- dips that look to be dairy-based. I'm planning to dump everything in one of my compost piles. This is a bad idea????

I love the memory board idea, but I transferred my calendar to digital and I will never go back. I can access my calendar on my phone anywhere, which is very handy for creating new appointments on the fly (like while still at the dentist) and for remembering where I need to be and where my kids should be. A grocery list is only good when you can take it to the grocery store, which... if you write the list down on a white board, you'd have to transfer it to a piece of paper later. But the memory board is cute and fun! :o)