What is your conditioning and programming when it comes to weights harvested per plant? Are you comfortable with the quantities you are producing per crop? The ideas and beliefs that you sometimes hold limit you and keep you from achieving more and prevent you from making new discoveries. I’ve made some discoveries, because I have made so many dammed mistakes. I tell you, if you knew about some of them you would laugh your ass off at me.
Okay, I’ll sacrifice my pride and tell you about this one. I had a friend that worked at a fish market and one day he tells me that they have got barrels full of fish heads and other unidentified parts just sitting in the back of the market waiting for disposal. He also tells me that the owner has to pay for the disposal so I can get them for free. I get an idea; I’m going to make my own fish emulsion, save money on fertilizer, perfect.
So, I drive my truck to the market. My friend with the owners blessing helps me to load the barrels, I estimate the weight at approximately 300 pounds total. My new fertilizer is loaded into the bed and off I go, waving to the owner my thanks with promises to return the barrels right away.
I get home and start the arduous task of unloading the barrels of fish heads and parts all by myself, that now smell really bad; they didn’t smell like this when they were at the market. There is a terrible smelling liquid that has leaked out of a barrel and pooled in the truck bed that I decide I will deal with later. For now the heads need to be converted into a wonderful fish emulsion fertilizer.
I start to pulverize some heads by smashing them with the top of a sledge hammer.
Some time goes by and the smashed heads are piling up and I stop to assess the progression. First I realize that these smashed heads in no way resemble fish emulsion. The fish emulsion that I have used in the past is a liquid and has only a slight odor of fish. This smashed concoction smells horrible and in no way looks like the liquid that I have purchased from the garden store in the past. I come to the harsh realization that I am not a master fish emulsion maker and my spirits start to drop, but I rally and I am only slightly disheartened. I get a new idea.
I will burry the fish heads in the plot that I have been prepping for the next season. Mother Nature will do the work for me underground (I convince myself). I struggle with the barrels to the site which is not far from my house; sixty feet down a slope in the scrub brush and start digging. It’s hot and flies start to arrive, big blue-green metallic looking flies that are buzzing everywhere. I finish digging a series of shallow trenches that my inexperienced mind tells me is the proper way to distribute the fish fertilizer uniformly. I dump the reeking fish parts into the trenches. I hurriedly start to cover the stinking remains as fast as I can to attempt to get some relief from these insects that have been landing all over the rotting fish and then landing on me.
Okay, the heads have been buried and I wipe the sweat from my brow surveying the site. In my imagination I see big healthy plants that produce well over my greatest expectations. I smile as the breeze cools my sweat covered body and I congratulate myself on salvaging the botched attempt at making fish emulsion.
Now, there was a beautiful park with Norfolk Pines and picnic benches about a hundred yards from my house, but all was not as it seemed. The park had a problem with feral cats, with no exaggeration 80 to 100 by my estimates. There were all kinds of cats, big, small, young and old, all the colors that a cat can possess. People were saying something needed to be done. There were talks of a mass trapping. The neighborhood Quilting Association held a picnic and food was stolen. The more aggressive and daring cats darting in and snatching food literally from the hands of the picnic goers, it was awful.
So, I had also volunteered to watch my two small cousins for their parents while they went to Las Vegas for this same weekend. They were dropped off at my house by their two eager parents with brief goodbyes and comments of what is that smell. The kids and I go into the house and they run to and turn on the T.V. I throw a frozen pizza in the oven and treat myself to a cold one.
It’s dark outside when the first noises are heard. Yowls and inarticulate cries of eerie volume, some from afar, some from what appears to be coming from under the floor, but definitely the back and side yards of the house.
I look out the window of the kitchen door that has a view of the back yard and I see dirt covered cats fighting, dirty cats chasing one another, still others watching each other face off to fight, all with dirt on their faces and bodies. Something is nagging at the back of my mind and trying to get through. Something is trying to give me the answer to this bizarre scene.
The little kids rush to my side and are now holding onto my clothes asking what’s going on, their totally freaked out. Now, it doesn’t help that their mother who is a fan of horror movies allowed them to watch Pet Cemetery earlier this week. I try to reassure them that the animals of Pet Cemetery have not come to the house and I try to answer their questions that they are barraging me with all at one time. I go to open the door and the younger one screams “noooo.” I open the door, to do what I don’t know maybe attempt to scare all these dirty cats away.
There is a blur at my feet and a mean looking, scarred, muddy faced cat runs into the kitchen with a fish head that seems to big for it to carry and positions itself under the kitchen table and starts making high pitched growling noises that make my hair stand up. This is a good thing because the younger of the two cousins climbs up my shirt and grabs onto my hair trying to get away from what he is now utterly convinced of as being a Pet Cemetery cat. The other slightly older one is now on my back and they are both screaming.
I stumble out of the kitchen and into the yard that is full of hungry, dirty cats running in all directions. I head for the sanctuary of my truck and there is a cat in the bed licking at the pool of foul smelling liquid. Luckily my keys are in the ignition, in those days you could leave your keys in your car without worrying about it getting stolen. I open the door and lurch in; the kids are still trying to hold onto their current positions of one on my head and the other still on my back. I manage to dislodge them and seat belts be damned we speed off headed for my friends house, to the one I’m thinking got me into this situation in the first place by telling me about the fish. At this point I have no regard for the cat that was in the truck bed, who knows when it jumped out, probably when I started the truck. The distance to my friend’s house is only a short way and we reach his house in no time.
The kids immediately assume their defensive positions with the little one on my head again and the other once again on my back. My friend’s girlfriend hears the commotion from inside the house and comes outside. She sees the horrified faces of my two young cousins and gives me an accusatory glare; she never did like me. My friend comes strolling out of the house and I quickly ask his girlfriend if she can watch my two traumatized cousins for a short time. She is attempting to question the kids while still fixing me with a glare. My friend approaches and I grab him and shove him into the truck and speed away with the girlfriend’s curses at our backs.
He is laughing and teasing me as I explain, up until we reach my house. Then the look on his face turns to confusion. We can’t continue all the way up the driveway because there are two dirty cats trying to de-fur each other that are in the way and the fur that has been dislodged from both of them is clouding the windshield. Neighbors are seen peering out their windows. Some are outside looking back and forth between us and my yard. Other dirty cats are prowling in the yard with arched backs and assorted fish parts sticking out of their mouths and the kitchen door is still wide open with the light shining out.
I jump out and come around the truck and open my friends still closed door. Now the look on his face resembles not humor but fear. I try to pull him out and he resists me. I get him out and I drag him to the garage where I arm myself with a broom. He says “what do I do?” I tell him to grab something and follow me because there is one in the kitchen. I take off in the direction of the house and I hear him following behind me.
When I reach the kitchen door I can see that the swinging door that divides the kitchen from the rest of the house is closed, thank goodness. I enter the kitchen and there is the same cat with the fish head still in his mouth only partly eaten, but now he is not alone. There is another dirt covered cat attempting to feed upon the fish head that is tightly closed in the original cat’s mouth.
I feel my friend bump into my back and who I assume is the first cat, utters the same high pitched growl. I feel my friend take a step back in the face of battle. I swing the broom at the two cats to chase them out from under the table hoping to get them out of the kitchen. This is too much; I bend down so I can use the broom to poke them out. My head is under the edge of the table and a blaring noise makes me jump and bang my head on the underside of the table. I pull myself back out and what do I see? My friend is blowing a 3 foot long bright yellow colored horn at the cats and me.
The same horn I had won at the carnival the year before. Over the blaring I yell, what are you doing and is that the only thing you could find to use in this situation? Between blows on the horn, he says “I was looking for something to use and this stood out.” I shake my head and resume the mission. I finally get the reach I need and poke at the both of them with the broom. They make it for the open door. I turn around and I see them exiting the kitchen and I yell to my friend to close the door.
I search the rest of the interior of the house to make sure there are no other dirty unwanted guests. At this point I am satisfied that I have done all that I can do tonight. My friend and I walk back to the truck and he is still blowing that stupid horn scaring cats when they are in the way. We drive to his house, I drop him off and I pick up my sleeping cousins. My friend’s girlfriend is muttering under her breath to my friend that I am incapable of watching children and why is he my friend and why does he still hang out with me.
I put a fake smile on my face and thank her, leaving and muttering to myself ungrateful things about her. We get back to my house and things have quieted down some. You can hear an occasional yowl in the distance now and then. I shower the kids and then myself and we go to sleep. Of course they insist on sleeping with me so I have a miserable nights rest. In the morning we wake up to the birds chirping and I spend the rest of the day cleaning the kitchen, the truck and reburying uneaten fish heads.
I tell you my friends I will never try to scrimp and save money on nutrients again. I have since that fiasco always planned meticulously on every operation I have been involved with and my now grown cousins still blame me for not being able to own cats or even be involved with a significant other that owns cats. This is just one of the mistakes that has given us at GroPro the experience and the ability to help and direct you in your grow operation needs. So, no matter the problem or question we have probably encountered it.
Maximum Quantities to you and yours from the GroPro Guys.
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