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| A cat door was cut in a boarded up old door frame at the back of the garage |
Specifically, a cat door has been cut at the back of the garage to allow our feral kitties access to a warm dry place to curl up. The door is high enough that skunks can't jump in but unfortunately it does not deter raccoons. Now, there is no food of any kind in the garage so even if the coons get in there should not be a problem.
But not this time. In their quest for something edible they ripped open a box of bone meal, threw a bottle of fish fertilizer to the ground and finally (in exasperation I think) shredded a box of kleenex. I cleaned up the mess and decided to take the fertilizer up to the house.
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| Smells like fish but doesn't taste near as good |
The moral of the story here would be, lock up anything that smells even remotely like food to an animal. Otherwise you're looking for trouble.
Several weeks ago I started my yearly foray into onion growing. Every year I try growing onions and I've yet to have much luck. This year though someone suggested that I give my seedlings a little boost of fertilizer to get them going. I'm willing to try anything at this point so off I went to retrieve the fertilizer from the window seat where I last left it.
What was the moral of this story? oh yes, that's right, lock up anything that smells even remotely like food to an animal. (How many times do I need to learn this lesson?)
Somebody .... ahem ....
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| I'm willing to bet I know who |
had bitten through the bottom of the container leaving a rather large tooth hole. I suddenly realized I was dripping stinky dead fish fertilizer all over the house, all over my clothes and hands.
I think I can firmly say I've learned my lesson now.
This little piece of garden/pet wisdom is brought to you today via Joene for her monthly Gardening Oops. [aka GOOPS]
30 comments:
I know how stinky this stuff is. I hope you did not have too much trouble getting the scent out of your clothes, hands, and house.
Thanks for joining GOOPs this month and thanks for a good chuckle!
A lesson for everyone.
Eeeww, all over the house? You're right, this was an oops! Don't do it no more.
Our cat (now deceased) had a thing for toilet paper. We would sometimes come home and find the bathroom floor covered with the stuff, finely shredded.
Oh my...that sounds awful. When I bring out the bone meal or the blood meal, the cats go crazy. You are so kind to leave a door open for the feral cats.
I think your cat is trying to look innocent in that picture - you can almost hear it saying - who me! Hope you managed to get rid of any nasty smells.
the floors weren't too bad, easily wiped up but the clothes needed to be soaked and rinsed out. That stuff is really oily!
Hopefully others can learn from this mistake :)
Obviously I was not paying much attention. When I realized it was dripping and looked down I could clearly see the trail I had left of stinky fish juice.
That sounds like the kleenex I found. Just tiny bits left, scattered from one end of the garage to the other.
I suppose if I had thought about it, it would have been obvious that fish fertilizer might attract cats LOL! I'll need to find a better place for keeping these items now.
Took a little scrubbing but everything is clean now. That cat might look innocent but I know better! he routinely breaks into the kitchen cupboards to try and get at the bags of dry cat food.
Fish fertilizer is the stinkiest! Kelp smells much better. Looks like your gorgeous cat helped himself to a bit of fish stew. :o) I'm sure he thought you had lovingly left it there for him like a good human.
Ahaha! My cats will drink from the watering can when I have fish fertilizer in it - which happens more often now as our seedlings get going. Have you tried KelpMan? No smell - great stuff!
Oh, my gosh! Funny, but I'm sure it wasn't to you at the time! Cats always look so innocent afterwards, don't they? But I'm certain in their minds, they know they've done bad!
Oh my gosh, you poor thing..I suppose I shouldn't laugh but I can easily imagine the stink.
I used to use Fish Fertilizer in the summer on my condo garden to drive away the noisy neighbours. It really worked, and is still my most popular post, lol.
So to imagine the smell inside when I know how effective it is outside...whew.
Jen
Animals seem to love to shred things like your box of klennex. Unbeknownst to me, Mator raided our recycling bin and selected a few food boxes to play with. I looked out to see little bits of shredded cardboard spread all over the end of the garden closest to the house. I still have more to rake up. Little devil!
I don't have great luck with onions either. Maybe I should try some fish fertilizer- but I will now know to keep it well out of reach of the troublemakers. They have keen noses too! I can just imagine the puncture wounds and the oozing fish fertilizer.
LOL your cat looks as if he is trying to play innocent :)
I never even considered this stuff would smell good to anyone, but of course! dead fish to a cat is like chocolate to me.
I've never heard of KelpMan but I'll be looking for it! I liked this stuff as it's locally made but I found out it's incredibly oily and hard to wash out of clothing.
I think cats know but just refuse to acknowledge they could ever possibly do wrong :)
It's a wonder I didn't notice it immediately but there was so much dried on the outside of the bottle I guess I figured that's where the smell was coming from. That stuff is definitely potent.
I'll bet he had a ton of fun while you weren't looking! Those little pieces of paper are a pain to clean up though. The good news is my onions have developed some really nice roots on them so I guess the fertilizer is helping.
not very successfully :)
I had a dog that everything smelled like food, even steel belted radial tires! Many products are made with animal biproducts and cats seem to sniff them out. My cats ate the fringe off my oriental carpet because it had traces of the oil I used on the wood floors. Glad I don't have raccoons, but the chipmunks found their way into the garage. Burrowed into the plastic bird food container and had an all you can eat. We have the feral cats, but I discourage them because of the birds. My neighbor is like you and takes care of them in winter, with built shelter and food. I took two of them in for pets, so I think I did my good deed even not being a cat person.
tried the fish emulsion just once. Now sticking to seaweed, smells strong, but not unpleasant.
My cat Ruby tries that "innocent look" sometimes as well. I don't fall for it :)
Ewwww! All I can say is I'm so glad I can learn from your mistakes Marguerite! Of course, now I'm racking my brain to think whether I left anything remotely edible in our basement before we left...and if Michael boarded up the basement windows! Before I left in August there was a hole in one of the basement window screens caused by someone trying to get in...or out!
Mice will get into everything and make a next out of anything. I remember stacking toilet paper in a back closet off the garage one time to come and find it everywhere. I can't imagine stinky fish fertilizer dripped everywhere. I've been lucky so far but this year especially I've been bothered by moles, the yard is a mess, they have pulled bits out of the side of the house leaving trails everywhere.
Eugh...
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