Soil, water, and tea questions

[moose eater]

Widow Bomb has finally agreed that it's time to move forward. I located a mostly ripe bud near the periphery of the light's foot-print, and snuck a sample. She's still putting on some weight in resin, etc., but her pistils and bracts are retracting and 'plumping up,' her trichs are getting a wee bit less clear, her scent is good, and what little boost she's received seems to have been just what the doctor ordered.

Under normal 5600k LED work lights, her overall color is AWESOME!!!

I'm off to hit the sack to toss and turn some more. Have to roast a goose with oyster dressing for company tomorrow. They've requested the spuds be roasted under the drippings rack in the run-off from the goose. Rich stuff. I'm thinking some steamed green beans will put the 'healthful seal of approval' on the whole affair.

Then tomorrow evening, the work begins chopping down the SLH.

The world keeps spinning no matter how hard I drag my feet!!

 

[h.h.]

I have a broody goose under the front porch with her faithful gander circling around all day and all night. She doesn't come out and he doesn't sleep.

I tried cooking a goose twice. Not doing a good job of it, I wasn't happy and at 50 bucks a pop. I'd butcher these two, but I want a flock.

Not to lie to you, I haven't butchered anything yet. I have a fertilizer factory. At least I found a cheaper source of feed. They in turn were wanting 100 chicks a month. I'd have to find the eggs.

The smart pot worm bins are doing good. Nice white haze over it all. The worms are getting fat and happy. I decided to expand by 3x times, which will give me roughly 400 gallons before the worms get to it.

Are you doing flower under 5600k LED?

 

[moose eater]

I have a broody goose under the front porch with her faithful gander circling around all day and all night. She doesn't come out and he doesn't sleep.

I tried cooking a goose twice. Not doing a good job of it, I wasn't happy and at 50 bucks a pop. I'd butcher these two, but I want a flock.

Not to lie to you, I haven't butchered anything yet. I have a fertilizer factory. At least I found a cheaper source of feed. They in turn were wanting 100 chicks a month. I'd have to find the eggs.

The smart pot worm bins are doing good. Nice white haze over it all. The worms are getting fat and happy. I decided to expand by 3x times, which will give me roughly 400 gallons before the worms get to it.

Are you doing flower under 5600k LED?

No, I've got tin work-light hoods in an open central area of my garden room, containing 5600k LED conversion bulbs that fit into incandescent sockets, under which I trim, mix feed/H2O, etc. Nice clean white/blue daylight type light for working and trying to pretend I'm not half-blind.

The girls are flowering under 3100k Ushio 315 cmh's. One area remains with digital ballasts (a Phantom 400 digital, running a variety of digital bulbs for grow or bloom; some of the old High PAR Lumatek, a couple of others I can't think of right now, some digilux, etc., using the MH bulbs for veg and ~2 weeks into bloom, then the HPS for the remainder of bloom.

The other three areas are all 315s now.

The remaining digital area is going to 315 cmh here shortly. That will mark a total conversion to the lower electrical, better spectrum lighting. With Philips bulbs en route to replace the Ushios shortly.

A former partner had a flock of geese down on the river years ago. Better watch/guard animals than his Dobermans. His dogs were mostly deaf from gun fire. His geese alerted anytime someone pulled into the driveway, a fair distance away.

A local source of poultry excrement sounds attractive on one hand (*only a farmer or someone with thought disorders, or both, would say such a thing, mind you), but I've raised chickens enough times, and despite the benefits of the meat and eggs, after two experiences with bizarre, gross, and devastating diseases going through two flocks (in Northern Michigan, and later in the Yukon Territory), and the aftermath of the illness, in terms of salvaging remaining birds and cleaning up the pens, I have mixed feelings about the advantages, and distinctly critical feelings about the critters/process themselves.

And chickens, in my opinion, are tied for first place with sheep for 'least likely to head up their class in test scores.'

Roasting a goose, I tend to do it like a domestic duck, if it's fattened up enough. Rub it down thoroughly with salt and pepper, and any other spices being applied, inside and out, prick the breast repeatedly & thoroughly with a narrow, sharp knife tip or other pointed object to create enough holes for the fat to ooze from (unlike a turkey, it shouldn't need a lot of basting if it's truly fattened). Stuff with the dressing of choice but -don't- pack it in too tightly (is there any appropriate dressing other than either oyster stuffing or wild rice stuffing with water chestnuts and giblets??!! ) Suspend the bird on a rack above the bottom of a pan, with a 1/2 cup or so of water in the bottom of the roaster pan. Place spuds in the bottom of the roaster pan, where they can collect the goose or duck fat as the bird and spuds roast. Roast covered for about 20"/lb. at 325 degrees f.(in this case, about 4 hours, plus a bit extra for the stuffing time), removing the roaster's cover about 30" or so before it's done, cranking up the heat to about 400 degrees f. at that time.

I need to kick away at the current 3-4 projects that are screaming at me (a final light conversion described above, trying to germinate some 34-45 year old Red Thai, Colombian Gold, Acapulco Gold, Kush, and (????) seeds with Mystic Funk's various methods and one or so of my own, a myco-project, the 3 standing dead spruce trees that have waited for some time to be added to the 'btu's to be recycled into btu's' piles of cured spruce firewood to sell in order to buy #1 heating oil, and likely another chore or 3).

Once that's all nearing completion, I need to locate the pages you'd referenced re. stacked worm bins (buckets?), and see about creating some worm bins in limited space, to try and match what ever store-bought castings with something mo' fresh and wholesome..... I hope.

Checking chores and getting at the goose to be stuffed...

Spuds to bring up from storage to clean and prep, and oyster dressing to mix up. After another cup'a joe, I think..

 

[moose eater]

Forgot to mention, probably because we do domestic duck or goose so infrequently, there's typically a BUNCH of fat deposited in the lower end of the body cavity where the stuffing primarily is placed. This bird had close to 3/4 lb. of snow-white fat. Really nice stuff, with lots of potential purposes, though today it will simply season some spuds,
etc.

Anyway, that fat needs to be dislocated and removed as well as possible, or it will absolutely saturate your stuffing, to the point of excess.

So, with fat removed, and the giblets (including a GIANT gizzard in 2 pieces) simmering before being divided between the stuffing and the gravy, I'm back to chopping the celery and onion for the oyster stuffing.

I think I had one cup too many of the coffee. May have to tone it down a touch with a breakfast beverage of milk, maple syrup, and Canadian whiskey, or a puff of some SLH.. Or both. It is Saturday, after all!!! ;^>)

 

[h.h.]

 

[h.h.]

I had figured out mathematically the rate of production per size of bin, made a few corrections, then realized my initial figures were questionable, then erased the whole thing.

The worming 101 sticky ha some good information before it breaks off into the usual "cool thread bro" pages of infinity.

I did figure out that I'm critically short on worms. I've ordered 14 pounds, which includes 5 pounds of Europeans..
Assuming they eat half their weight in 1 day, they're eating 7 pounds a day.
Assuming 1 gallon of soil = 8 pounds, the production rate would be just under 1 gallon per day. Three hundred gallons would take 300+ days with all the individual bins finishing around the same time. (Not counting for exponential expansion. )

A 5 gallon bucket has a surface area of around 0.8 sq.'.
If you used 0.8 pounds of worms eating 0.4 pounds a day and the bucket weighed 40 pounds, it might take 100 days. 7.5 buckets would give you around 5 cubic feet. Combining wigglers with Europeans might maybe half that time. IDK.

Figure I can sell off any excess on Craigslist. With the specialty amendments, even if I sold it at cost, I would end up with a very healthy worm population.
You feed the soil to feed the plant. You feed the worms to feed the soil. Healthy soil, healthy plant. Healthy worms, healthy soil.Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Going to get a goose. I think in the BBQ though. 185* Let it slow cook.

Having summer for winter. Outside with the hose yesterday.

I'm getting manure by the truckload. I get around 60 gallons of spent brewers grain per week. Last year I brought in maybe 150 bags of leaves and maybe 100 bags of wood mulch. If I add worms and a few high quality ingredients, I can sell horse shit for the price of kelp.
.
For it's evil, wicked, mean, and nasty...only the highest quality horse manure mind you.

Free range horses raised above 6,000' have the best manure...LOL
Cartoon character of Henry the Horse in dreadlocks, pulling a plow with worms jumping and huge weed plants in the background. "Now with kelp..."

I know you had some blubbers going. If you start using ACT, it'll stretch those worm droppings. . The microbiology becomes redundant.
I think one is better off using a minimum of droppings rather than a maximum. As I mentioned with the ashes, muck. As Doc suggested, soil texture doesn't have the respect it deserves.
Getting the right chemical mix as well as the right biology, creates good soil texture. The water flows, the air flows, and the food flows.

 

[moose eater]

Thanks, h.h., Laughed at the insertion of John Kaye and Steppenwolf's lyrics from 'Don't Stop on the Grass, Sam.' "Evil, wicked, mean, and nasty" "Don't be such an ass, Sam."

Good smile from the Rasta Pony imagery, too.

I used zero wood ash in the last batch of modified Dank Frank's soil. For years I had stopped its use, then returned to it when tying to amp up the K a bit. That, and a return to older recipes.

With the number of micro-brewers springing up all over Alaska, the possibility of access to spent grains is intriguing.

30-35 years ago we used to get outdated produce from the grocery stores, veggie vendors, etc., to bait black bear (I haven't purposefully hunted bear in over 30 years now, and the veggie sources we once used for such things found too much demand (and hassle) in portioning out smaller amounts of veggies to so many persons, instead doing contracts (??) with larger pig farmers and such, who would commit to taking the whole lot at once).

I saw the 'Worming 101' sticky, and held off going there until I get closer to time of experimenting/building.

What ever tek I end up using, it needs to be stacked and small in foot print, as space right now is paramount.

In the past, when any compost material was kept indoors, or for the tea buckets, the prospect of increased numbers of fungus gnats was in direct correlation to increased presence of organic matter. Worm castings, etc., etc..

In those cases, I found that covering the given commodity/area with a fine, nylon, no-seeum bug mesh and using the little quarter-inch bungees to fix the screen to the tops of the containers/buckets aided in reducing the number of small flying insects in one's nose and face during dinner time.. Still have all that stuff some place.

Shipping worms to Interior Alaska during winter might get dicey, though right now we have forecasts for highs near freezing temperatures for the majority of the next week or so.

We produce over a 1/2 lb. of compost daily, especially including my wife's fairly stout caffeine addiction, with lots of high quality coffee grounds coming through the compost pail each day.

The goose our acquaintance brought over went about 12 lbs. at $4.99/lb. There's a LOT of bone (and other tissues) loss on a goose, as you're likely aware. Far more % of loss, in my estimation, than with a chicken or turkey, and a slight bit less flavor than with a duck. I wouldn't pay over $60 for a goose, which is why we eat so few of them. Duck, every 4 to 8 years probably.

Haven't tried smoking one at lower temps the way we do pork roasts, ribs, etc.

My tendency when transplanting is to spend the first week keeping the surface of the pots wet/moist, to facilitate the spreading of the new roots, including up toward the surface. In the recent transplanting of the mothers, I've restrained myself, not permitting myself to fall into the older, well-intentioned (likely excess) hydration at this phase, and the moms seem to be doing fine at the moment. All the questionable colors and symptoms from root compaction and nutrient imbalance are slowly going away, and they're returning to the healthy happy green I expect, though the N often releases a bit faster than some of the other components, leaving a slightly darker green than is ideal.

Does that Rasta Pony get frequent doobie breaks and watering?

I appreciate your sense of humor and insights, h.h.

I had figured out mathematically the rate of production per size of bin, made a few corrections, then realized my initial figures were questionable, then erased the whole thing.

The worming 101 sticky ha some good information before it breaks off into the usual "cool thread bro" pages of infinity.

I did figure out that I'm critically short on worms. I've ordered 14 pounds, which includes 5 pounds of Europeans..
Assuming they eat half their weight in 1 day, they're eating 7 pounds a day.
Assuming 1 gallon of soil = 8 pounds, the production rate would be just under 1 gallon per day. Three hundred gallons would take 300+ days with all the individual bins finishing around the same time. (Not counting for exponential expansion. )

A 5 gallon bucket has a surface area of around 0.8 sq.'.
If you used 0.8 pounds of worms eating 0.4 pounds a day and the bucket weighed 40 pounds, it might take 100 days. 7.5 buckets would give you around 5 cubic feet. Combining wigglers with Europeans might maybe half that time. IDK.

Figure I can sell off any excess on Craigslist. With the specialty amendments, even if I sold it at cost, I would end up with a very healthy worm population.
You feed the soil to feed the plant. You feed the worms to feed the soil. Healthy soil, healthy plant. Healthy worms, healthy soil.Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Going to get a goose. I think in the BBQ though. 185* Let it slow cook.

Having summer for winter. Outside with the hose yesterday.

I'm getting manure by the truckload. I get around 60 gallons of spent brewers grain per week. Last year I brought in maybe 150 bags of leaves and maybe 100 bags of wood mulch. If I add worms and a few high quality ingredients, I can sell horse shit for the price of kelp.
.
For it's evil, wicked, mean, and nasty...only the highest quality horse manure mind you.

Free range horses raised above 6,000' have the best manure...LOL
Cartoon character of Henry the Horse in dreadlocks, pulling a plow with worms jumping and huge weed plants in the background. "Now with kelp..."

I know you had some blubbers going. If you start using ACT, it'll stretch those worm droppings. . The microbiology becomes redundant.
I think one is better off using a minimum of droppings rather than a maximum. As I mentioned with the ashes, muck. As Doc suggested, soil texture doesn't have the respect it deserves.
Getting the right chemical mix as well as the right biology, creates good soil texture. The water flows, the air flows, and the food flows.

 

[moose eater]

Wanted to come back after reconsidering our compost volume. I suspect that on many days, we get to around 1 lb. dry-weight of viable compost.

Also, "ACT" ??? You lost me. Perhaps something so obvious my idiot quotient will rise accordingly when you clarify. (Aerated Compost Tea??)

Lastly (for now anyway), any thoughts on the troublesome continued production of fresh pistils in the case of the GTH#1??

The SLH finished really nice. no lingering production of pistils, plump bracts, beautiful color in all regards, LOTS of resin, nice stone, no male stress flowers, good taste.. Positive marks across the board, except that production weight was down a bit, though she was never a truly stellar producer..

Widow Bomb is third in line, and seems lacking in the sense of weight that good resin production would/should provide. She may well have moved herself closer to the guillotine as a result, as hard as it is for me to kill a mother that's been here for a long time.

I'll pop some Terpenado in her place if I do 'end her,' take up some space to allow for finding any keepers, and go from there. Maybe get into some experiments with the Oroblanco, as well.

It used to be my stance was fairly firm, that if a plant didn't perform well under my methods, that was the death knell. I'm trying to be a bit more open and flexible now, but.... there's still a line, ad still a ton of information I may never integrate properly.

I wish the capacity of my brain were 25 years younger or so some times.

 

[h.h.]

http://www.growweedeasy.com/keep-getting-new-white-pistils

 

[moose eater]

Thanks.

The link failed, both with the https and with http.

I'll try a search for the quote in the link and incorporate the site as well.

 

[moose eater]

Found some info at the site you linked to.

Unlikely it's a matter of temperatures at this point (room is 70-72 f. and boxes only slightly higher). I'll go with light intensity and good health, as well as the plant 'knowing' it hasn't seeded successfully yet, though not all of the suspect buds creating new pistils are immediately under the 315s.

Maybe they're just that averse to death?? ;^>)

By the way, the 185 degrees f. for your goose may be too low. Even on a super slow smoke, I tend to go no lower than 225 f or 250 f.

275 f. is the preferred temp, as of lately, for pork ribs and roasts, and with a goose/chicken/turkey/duck you're trying to get your thigh meat (at the joint) to 185 and your breast meat to 165 or so (+/-).

My acquaintance who brought the goose over acknowledged not having had goose for 40 years, but told me yesterday that we needed to cook it longer/hotter (??) with no cover, in order to turn the fatted skin on the breast more crispy. I'd cooked the thing covered in order to conserve moisture, then cranked up the oven to 400 f. for the last 25 minutes or so, without the cover on the roaster, to crisp and brown.

Oh well.. "You can please some of the people some of the time..."

 

[h.h.]

I do my briskets at 185*. Yum. You're right though, poultry should be higher temps.

I got a truckload of k-feldspar yesterday. Came around Red Rocks. Pink feldspar, called k-feldspar or alkali feldspar because of the potassium content. On the upside, it also contains calcium , magnesium, and sulfur. On the downside, alumina and sodium. It has an orange tint, looks like high iron content. Nicely decomposed.
Pretty stuff. Nice ground cover. Stuff grows well in the area that it came from. It's wanting to go into my mix.

Did a load of cardboard in the mixer yesterday. Tear it up, let it soak, then spin it. Put in half a cup of gypsum. I'll add some zeolite and pumice or maybe just lave rock and use it for worm bedding.

Finding heated real estate for a worm bin can be a problem. I started in the garage, but those will probably go slow. I do have some space under the basement stairs.
Your screens are a good idea. I won't be using the bins for food scraps, so that should help keep gnats down. .

 

[moose eater]

Any idea what the analysis numbers are on the k-feldspar? i.e., the K, mg, calcium, and sulfur specifically? I'm not familiar with it.

The aluminum, in small amounts, I've always understood to be a natural element in gardening, and have (specifically with ornamentals) used aluminum sulfate as an acidifier a time or two, though I hate to use it any more. I forget now which flower it was that it also brightened up the blues when applied.

Underneath a stair case was exactly where I was considering placing a stack of buckets for worm castings.

Good luck with the smoked bird. I smoked some brined turkey drumsticks this last summer, after getting offended at the price they wanted for them at the Fair. I don't think mine were as good, though, in my defense, they were a first-time effort. And they -definitely- weren't $9/each!!

The SLH is all trimmed, leaving some really nice sticky scissor hash to contemplate in the interim. And I -really- need to quit procrastinating on the other chores. It's becoming a point of embarrassment!

I do my briskets at 185*. Yum. You're right though, poultry should be higher temps.

I got a truckload of k-feldspar yesterday. Came around Red Rocks. Pink feldspar, called k-feldspar or alkali feldspar because of the potassium content. On the upside, it also contains calcium , magnesium, and sulfur. On the downside, alumina and sodium. It has an orange tint, looks like high iron content. Nicely decomposed.
Pretty stuff. Nice ground cover. Stuff grows well in the area that it came from. It's wanting to go into my mix.

Did a load of cardboard in the mixer yesterday. Tear it up, let it soak, then spin it. Put in half a cup of gypsum. I'll add some zeolite and pumice or maybe just lave rock and use it for worm bedding.

Finding heated real estate for a worm bin can be a problem. I started in the garage, but those will probably go slow. I do have some space under the basement stairs.
Your screens are a good idea. I won't be using the bins for food scraps, so that should help keep gnats down. .

 

[h.h.]

Feldspars (KAlSi3O8 – NaAlSi3O8 – CaAl2Si2O8) are a group of rock-forming tectosilicate minerals that make up about 41% of the Earth's continental crust by weight.

Granite contains a lot of feldspar. This is basically decomposed red granite, though a high percentage of feldspar makes it technically just feldspar. There's a number of bright red, crumbly, crystalline, chunks of rock in it.

Potassium gives it the red or pink color. Iron can be red too, but it's usually more of a rust/blood color where this is more ruby red. This looks like a blend of the two. Kind of a red copper color. It may even have some copper.
Reading one study theorizing that if the feldspar is weathered, it's due to phosphorous eating bacteria. Different bacteria follow suit and start unlocking the other nutrients. It starts breaking down into clay materials. What I have ranges from flour to 3/8" with a number of fist size chunks.
I think I'm good with it. Other studies show positive or no effects. Nothing really negative. I need grit for the worms.
Maybe I'll call the college.
Somebody, somewhere knows. All the tests have been done with all the variables accounted for. Kind of a shame. If there is any value, following current trends, it'll soon become a strip mine.

 

[moose eater]

Thanks. It takes me several minutes just to load the Google search page, let alone completing any searches.

The feldspar sounds like the stuff around Red Rocks, Co., and the concert arena there, and down toward the folks at Planet Bluegrass (forget the name of the town they're affiliated with. Used to order music from them on rare occasion, and envied the surroundings there, for the beauty, the old 'farm' they occupied, etc.). They put out some awesome recordings of the Telluride Festival and other festivals down there.

I played a bit in a couple of older mines over in the Yukon Territory, near a village I lived in during the 1970s. We'd "climb the mountain from the inside." Pretty cool stuff, really, going up older, still-stable shafts, entering the hillside about a 1/4 mile above the roadway, then exiting the side of the mountain another 5 to 10 stories up, with the last, final shaft being a nearly vertical, narrow tunnel with an old wooden ladder leading to a hole at the top, having ascended internally, taking note of old artifacts, etc. We'd dig quartz crystals out of the walls of the tunnels and shafts, with the quartz crystals tending to be easiest to locate in the walls where there were notable iron ore deposits, revealed by the rust/dried-blood reddish color you referenced.

Doesn't sound like the mg, sulfur, etc., is in stout enough concentration to cause negative issues for the garden.

I'm on 125 vertical ft. of silt (BLEH!!!! An electronics and house-keeping nightmare!!), with schist beneath that for about 40-50 ft., then quartz with iron-ore deposits below that.

Meant to say that with beef, you can eat the stuff raw most often (steak tartar, etc.), (*excluding burger and other ground products, as they've lost their protection from airborne bacteria, etc., when the outer casing tissue of the meat is disrupted in the grinding process), and a rare steak is technically some where near 140 f. internally (my younger son and I often eat them bloodier than that). But with pork, poultry, bear, etc., medium rare is the bare minimum. Most of the unhealthy hitch-hikers on-board any given piece of meat die at about 126 degrees f. and the harder-core typically around 146 degrees f. But there are bacteria as well as the often-inherent-to-wild-game parasites.

Some of the more evil proteins are more or less immune to heat, such as in mad cow disease, or (I believe) its nasty cousin, found in some deer.

Waiting on a delivery that technically should've been here yesterday, then need to get some of that embarrassing list of chores done, before going in with an OBD II diagnostics tool, to try and assess my older son's automotive troubles. (*Watching young people trying hard, -really- hard, to be as independent as they can, trying to make ends meet with relatively lower paying jobs, driving rigs that break down left and right, because that's what they had $ for at the time, and economics dictating they can't afford to repair those needy cars..... becomes a sad venture to observe.. Another train wreck to watch).

Have a great day, h.h.

 

[h.h.]

It's the sensor going to the air filter needing cleaning. It's always a sensor.
OBDII tools doesn't work on my truck. Not unless I want to put out a few hundred bucks anyway. Fortunately there's a lot of truck forums. Those with the same year and model vehicles have the same breakdowns with the same symptoms.
If you want to throw the info up here, I can Google it.

Even the worst running car is a miracle. They can take a chunk of rock from your backyard and put gas in it. Now even better, they can convert sunshine.
You don't need a car if you don't have a job and you don't need a job if you don't have a car.
It's that wage thing. You work for somebody and they take all your money as profit. We have the workers who work, then we have the money changers who steal. They've stolen God's land to make us dependent. They've taken over the king's position. Our great society is on the verge of a breakdown. Revolution doesn't start as an idea. Revolution starts as desperation. (Shakes cane up in the air, like I just don't care.)

Sounds like a good view. Never get rid of that iron eating bacteria. Sounds like you moved in on it. Take comfert in the fact you'll never be anemic.

Cardboard in the mixer worked out well. Came out looking like miniature road apples. With a little added horse compost, even more so. I didn't clean the mixer from before. so I had residual which gave the cardboard a darker color.

The spent grain is an obligation. Half of it I get from somebody else who collects it. They get more than they need, but are obligated to take it. I kick in a couple bucks for gas.
I have 3 gallons with a little molasses and some EM-1 type additive going. A little yucca powder. No air, just an occasional stir. A little freezer burnt salmon on the bottom. It has a sweet smell.
The salmon is untraceable. It had already been a week mixed in with a little Epsoma and water before starting the fermentation.
I don't detect any acidity. I was wanting the Ph to drop a bit before adding fish bone meal and kelp.

 

[moose eater]

Yep, there's always been one sort of race or another as to who gets to possess the Grand Cosmic Seal of Approval where utilizing others' efforts is acceptable.

His mass flow air sensor has been a known disability for some time, as has his thermostat, but I believe we're either dealing with debris in the fuel tank (from before he bought the vehicle) leading to the toasting of the more recently-installed fuel pump, a cam sensor (relative to timing and ignition), or, possibly the timing belt jumped a tooth or four.

I took a booster box (personal power pack) over there, as well as the OBD II, a more limited set of tools, and some spark-checking wires with fittings (though his plugs are seriously recessed, and accessed through ports through the manifolds on a V-6 that's crammed into a space big enough for, maybe, a 4-cylinder. Thus my spark testing units can't even access the plugs. Probably need a 6" extension just to pull the plugs on the thing. Makes perfect sense to me now why some automobile manufacturers required corporate welfare during the TARP period in order to stay afloat).

It'll fire every now and again on rotation, and seems to try to start, but that's about it; timing or fuel delivery are the two greatest suspects at the moment.

When we dip-net salmon, my household (my wife, youngest son, and I) can take up to 45 fish from each of two fisheries (90 salmon total). There's still some meat hanging on the carcasses/vertebrae, and the bones themselves, and heads. They make for great composting if there's sufficient room in the coolers/truck to haul them home.

I see a bit of the nature of your on-going experimentation. I suspect that in my returning to a more purely organic methodology, and the temporary (??) varying reduction in production weight, but a better return in resin content, quality, etc. I can afford to step back some in aggregate production, as the market's all screwed up currently anyway..

In some regards, this takes some pressure off, and the reduction in output has less impact, less sense of urgency. Not that I want to waste my own time, but that the effect of the time spent meandering through changes and such is less detrimental.

I'll just continue trying to integrate that which makes most sense to me, as offered up by others, especially those things I hadn't considered in the past. Perhaps I'll return to that magic moment where the guano teas and the organic base click with each other, and I'm back into untold volumes of 16" and 18" sticky colas...

Maybe it's in part a karma thing, for not having looked at the plant correctly since that time?

Back when things clicked, and I was on top of my game, I would tell people, at this forum even, years ago, that it was half science, and half art. Having a relationship with the plants where you could hear or see what they were saying and deduce correctly the message.. as well as having at least some understanding for the basics in soil... Like surfing and reading waves, but also understanding gravity, buoyancy, etc..

Gotta' get to town -again- to snag some things for my younger boy for his snowmobile, and to pay some bills, then back to staring at my over-grown list of chores.

Cutting the GTH#1 tonight, and she's telling me that she's ready. Then I'll rush into the Widow Bomb, currently teetering on readiness, and I'll soon make a decision as to whether she comes to an end or not. Killing mothers and giving away puppies. Neither one causes celebration for me, and both fade into the past after a time.

 

[moose eater]

Got about 1/3 of the way through the GTH#1 last evening. VERY different texture or consistency to the resin, compared to the SLH.

The GTH#1 is a pervasive, feeling-stickier-than-it-is, somewhat like handling an item that has had freshly applied thinned varnish or latex, or something. Every where on the hand that touches her, feels coated in a thin but pervasive latex like experience. Nice scent. Lots of crystal.

Definitely don't like the way this round finished for the GTH#1; lots of variance in degree of ripeness on her, though nearly all trichomes had changed from clear to translucent-greying.

The extended growth of new pistils and buds is not heat or light-proximity related, so that leaves nutrients, or this particular plant's behavior... Though the somewhat-stressed mother that was finished recently did not have this feature, so I'm leaning toward it being nutes..

I also believe she likes/prefers to be fed closer to harvest time, as the curtailing of nutes at the standard 2-3 weeks out, and watching the natural fading occur, leaves her starved for energy to finish.. Admittedly, most of her time in bloom saw -very- little feeding, and that which was administered, was in half-doses or less.

Another mystery to resolve as I feel pinched for time to consider those already in front of me.

The SLH, as stated, finished perfectly, despite earlier concerns. A bit less scent than is typical of her, but dense, sticky resin, standard lemon-like aroma (despite it being mildly subdued), uniformly finished bracts and retracted pistils, no noteworthy new or unwanted growth at bud sites at the time of harvest, etc.

Finishing up GTH#1 tonight (she's been in the dark now for 2-3 days), then launching straight into WB, which now appears to be finishing more uniformly as well. She's teetering on being right where she needs cut. I'm clearly on -their- schedule at this point, rather than vice versa.

WB's color in her pistils etc., is far more normal under 5600k work lights than they appear under the 3100k Ushio 315s, despite the 3100s appearing far less orange than the hps lamps used to.

Changing out the whole-house in-line H2O filters today, and going back to changing the phosphorous in-line canister as well, after not using it for well over a decade or maybe even a decade and a half. A recent cross-sectioning of some rigid copper in the mechanical area of the house reveals some obvious thinning to the rigid copper as a result of long-term turbidity, and I need to avoid the $10,000+ bill for plumbing and sheet-rock refinishing in the event the copper and soldering fails as a result of that continuing pain-in-the-ass feature.

Whipping up a half-batch of again-slightly-modified soil, reducing the green sand by half to avoid any later stage issues that might be born of excess K.

Still under a fairly stout low pressure system that has outside temps way above normal. Folks in the mountains must be crying their eyes out for lack of decent trapping and other weather, as they're even warmer than we are, by all reports. Another week ahead (per NOAA) of the roads amounting to a skating rink, while the snow in the trees gets ever heavier. This type pattern rarely ends well.

I need to wait until the trim is relatively uniformly 'springy dry' and tumble it for hash, then put the remnants aside for making some canna butter.

A friend down in the Mat-Su asked me to bring her some 'shish. Maybe trade for some CBD oil in decent volume. And another friend has been battling a couple forms of cancer, as well as an aneurism in his intestines. He's older than I am by a fair bit, a good human being, and has been a kind soul toward me and mine for many years. I need to get there to see him before anything abrupt or terminal might occur.

Heart-felt, honest, good-byes, face-to-face, are one of the most important things we have in our ability as life nears ending its term. That shit matters. I told my wife the other day that if I have my family and my pups around me to hold my hand or nuzzle me when that time comes, then it's all good.. no matter what.

Anyway.. Onward!

 

[h.h.]

"We were right, we were giving
That's how we kept what we gave away"

Best wishes to your friend. I wish him ease of mind.

 

[moose eater]

Thanks, h.h.

A family member of his recently told me that his blood work had returned to normal, and, in a visit several weeks ago or so, the Docs couldn't find the tumor (second cancer issue aside from blood cancer), but that was following some increased alternative tx's he'd engaged in.

So I researched the alternative tx's myself, and found a near-guarantee from fairly credible sources that improvements related to the alternative tx, in studies, were reversed nearly immediately upon termination of the alt. tx. (In other words, the cancer(s) returned full-force as soon as the tx stopped).

I'm all for miracles, but....

That said, and not wanting to rain on anyone's current sense of optimism, I figure, per the research, he's basically bought a bit of time.

The man in question is a real hero in many ways, though he's never been willing to discuss those aspects of his life that made him such. Soft-spoken, paced in his words, generous, and more. A twinkle in his eyes that speaks to miles covered.

I know the lyrics you wrote above. Music was once a source of guidance, absent more stable adults, and I've logged so many words in my memory. Sometimes my greying mind stumbles to recall something, and it frustrates me, especially being more than a little OCD. But after hearing the melody over and over in my mind, and trying hard to place the words, it was one of those 'slapping self in the forehead' moments; Neil Young, and the title cut from 'Comes a Time', with what's-her-name singing harmony. Absolutely beautiful piece. Thanks. Another long retrospect into times we were more removed from the trail's ultimate direction. Another nostalgic tour wherein tears and smiles come in relatively equal force, at the same time.

I gave GTH#1 (and me) the night off last night. Tired and late, and the current status of her is stable enough there was no serious issue created by granting the remnants another 24 hours +/-. Another 24 hours in the darkness, some elevation to scent, maybe some resin movement, and lots of air going in and out to prevent anything negative happening.

Tried the quick-cured (not truly cured, but nicely dried) sample of Widow Bomb last night. Not as light in her density of matter as I'd perceived a bit earlier in this go, but not as dense in matter as the SLH or GTH#1, either. And despite the quick 'cure', her flavor and 'smokability' was excellent. It frustrates me a bit, the many times I get close to ending her, and then she, once again, produces a very nice stone. Fairly happy high, all things considered.

Made the mistake of listening to the news, and found myself laughing for one reason or another numerous times. Pot that helps me to laugh gets an extra star.

That leaves the LSD mom and perhaps the 20-year-old, stellar producer, California Indica, as possible recruits for the guillotine. Again, giving away puppies when they're standing there, wagging their tails, faces covered in milk, & all wide-eyed.. I guess I need to build that additional mother cupboard faster that I thought.

They win!!!... I'll do it!!

"We were right, we were giving
That's how we kept what we gave away"

Best wishes to your friend. I wish him ease of mind.