Parley, I understand what you are trying to say. But the past seven years really has been so full of incompetence for me. I have had a therapist that has been surprised by it all too.

I have consistently been a person who did things that were part of the "solution" instead of going along and becoming a part of the "problem". Yes, it is much more challenging to be part of the solution verses be part of the problem and I have noticed that so many people tend to "ignore" or "walk away" or "give in" which only adds to the problem.

For example, I found out the hard way about a toxic plant in hay that makes any animal that eats the hay very ill, and often so ill they suffer in agony and often die. I did not know about this plant, and I was not the only one, in fact even many veterinarians were treating sick livestock because of this plant and not recognizing it. People where feeding it to their horses that would get sick with severe colic and a vet would come out, treat the colic and the person would continue to feed this tainted hay only to have their horse get sick again, even after a colic surgery was done, leading to the horse dying.

When I had more than one get sick, the vet came out and told me it was some kind of poison. I did everything I could think of to find the source of the poison, and worked with the poison control center out in Utah. I finally pinned it down and found that plant in the hay and the poison control center listened to all the symptoms and finally gave me the toxin that was responsible.

I made copies of all the information the poison control center sent me, I saved samples of the plant too, and I began to warn other horse people to be careful. I began to notice that so many farmers were selling hay with this toxic plant in it. Even when I told them how toxic that plant was, they did not care, as long as people were buying whatever they cut in their fields and bailed, they didn't care. I also came across people that did have horses, even goats that got sick, they spent a fortune on trying to save, and their beloved animal died.

I had a farmer that would sell me hay from a field that was cleaner. Yet I would see him loading his delivery truck with hay bails he was delivering to other horse owners and the bails had that poisonous plant sticking out and the berries would be on the bed of the truck even. He was not even doing anything to remove that poisonous plant from his hay fields and it was only spreading. As it dries in the hay it falls apart too and becomes even more toxic. It gets ingested because of how it just breaks apart and ends up all through the hay too.

Well, I could not bear knowing this farmer was content on selling this tainted hay to people that obviously did not know and were endangering the health of their animals, and I already knew how horribly painful the animal who ingests the toxin ends up in too. It is a neuro toxin and it stops the digestive track and it can cause so many neurological and digestive problems for the animals.

I made so many copies of the information and I even put sample I took out of the old tainted hay that a farmer had sold to me. I drove around and stopped everywhere I saw people who had horses and livestock. I even did that whenever I went out to do jobs too. I talked to a Horseman's club at one of their meetings. I sent information to different vets too. I even wrote an anonymous article in a big horse paper that was very popular and circulated in different states around me too.

The farmers began to "hate me" too, after all they didn't WANT TO CARE. I also noticed that a grain store that I went to who also sold a lot of hay to her regular customers would get hay in with this plant in it. I gave her the information, but she "didn't want to care or know", then one day I asked her, "How can you have all these horse people come here horse people that care about their livestock and are trusting you, and how this is a social stop too, yet you will sell them this hay that could poison their horses?" You cannot "pretend" it isn't there and you "know it is poisonous" and you have been told of growing cases where I and others have had animals get sick and suffer from it". She was upset but she still did not want to know, she didn't want to take the chance of complaining to her hay source and insist on them providing "clean hay". She was "afraid" to be a part of the solution, to even be honest with her customers and tell them it may cost more for them to get hay, but it would mean she could go out of state if she had to to assure "clean hay". She chose to not even say anything to her customers and "play dumb".

It took a long time for me to get the word out and "begin the solution" to take place. I will tell you, the farmers didn't like it. I never told people which farmers were selling tainted hay, but there were very few in my state that sold "clean hay". I knew the only way it would "change" was when so many people knew, made it a point to buy better hay and these farmers would be left with very few customers. By the way, there are no laws protecting people when it comes to Hay in the US.

More and more horse people were getting "very picky" about the hay they bought. It took over ten years before the farmers began to tend their fields and work on getting rid of the quickly spreading poisonous plant in the nightshade family of poisonous plants. I even have a police report where a farmer called me and told me that I better stop telling people about that plant or he would come to my home and "slap me around". He wanted to hate me and blame me for "his desire to just want people to buy his hay even if it was tainted with toxins". DOES THAT MAKE SENSE? Who is really the BAD GUY, ME? Who is part of the problem, and who is actually willing to be PART OF THE SOLUTION?

It is hard to be "part of the solution", it really is BUT SOMEONE HAS TO BE WILLING TO DO IT.

I will not be fooled in to believing that the solution is to just ignore the things that cause harm to others, or participate in it either. I have been asked "why" I put the effort out if I don't make money off of it too. Well, I can't live my life "pretending' or disassociating or ignoring the ways people do things that are just plain DYSFUNCTIONAL and harmful to others.