Jfurry can't be trusted....

[laughingwillow]

I've been putting off this post in hopes of Jfurry finally coming through with my back pay for last season's gardening effort in mendo county. However after him dodging me for the last six months, I figure its time to go public.


While I doubt the guy will come back around here, its still probably best for the community to know that this guy isn't to be trusted. I guess I should have listened to an old time forum member who told me long ago that Jfurry was a bad trader. And I should have gotten the hint when furry failed to come through on a batch of genetics he promised to send for months on end. In hindsight, the deal he offered me out of the blue last year seemed (and apparently was) too good to be true.


Once I'd committed to spending the season in NoCal, it became apparent that jfurry made a lot of promises and then failed to carry through on most of them. But by that time, I was living on a mountain top in mendo county and decided to stick it out. Suffice it to say that the guy turned out to be a 13 year old in an adult body who who not only made a lot of promises but was comfortable changing the rules and even (his version of) reality on the fly.


At one point I let furry know that I was glad the project was his and that I was getting paid regardless of outcome because he had never followed through on the promise to bring more plants up the hill to fill a bunch of holes that remained empty the entire season. After that, he pretty much stopped coming around. Until it was time to harvest, that is. Then he sent a guy up the hill with materials to build an air-tight drying house, propane heaters and one six inch fan. (Said the town was completely sole out of fans, which turned out not to be true. ) However, I'd sunk so much of my own money into the project by that time that I told him my thoughts on his plan he told me it was none of my business to know why he was doing things that way. After al, he was the professional. Later, when I called him to tell him that we were making hella mold in the drying house, he told me that it wasn't true. Then when he showed up to collect the finished product, he told me he was going to be VERY disappointed in me if we didn't come out with a certain amount.


Anyway, he pushed back my payday by months and then when I went out to collect, he told me he had no money and that he'd never told me to come out at that time. (I guess when he'd stiffed me on my way out of town and then said I should drive out in late November instead of fly out because I'd be carrying more cash than would be allowed on a plane, he must have been meant something else than him paying me off for the season.) So after driving out to get paid for the season, I was told that I'd either be taking medicine home or going back empty handed. Then he shifted gears and told me about the great custom guitar he'd just bought. Go figure.     


One thing jfurry was clear about was that he'd be there to help with any legal issues that might arise. I guess that didn't apply to the "pay check" the drug task force found in my truck back in the midwest. By that time, he hadn't returned any of my calls for about three months. We're sitting at seven months with any contact, even though he knows who my contact person is in Mendo county. No risk for him there.


Meanwhile my lawyer has reached a plea agreement with the prosecutor for the county in question. I'm taking full responsibility for the situation and will end up on probation of some type, as I'e never been in trouble with the law in my life, up until now. Even under the circumstances, I've never considered getting furry involved with my legal troubles, even though I know where he lives, where he has his gardens and greenhouses and even where he stashes his medicine in Socal before delivering to the dispensaries. I'm just not that type of guy. What would my word be worth if I stooped to his level? I'm guessing he'll get what's coming to him one day without me having to push the issue.   


I feel better posting this. Maybe dtr, someone will think twice before making a trade or doing business with this guy before finding out the hard way that Jfurry can't be trusted. 


lw

[laughingwillow]

Partially because of the promises jfurry made when he called and asked me to come out for the season, the wife and I decided to relocate permanently to NoCal. She flew out for about one week every month to explore the area and look for a place to live. She studied her ass off to get licensed as a nursing home administrator in California and even made a trip out to sit for the exams. (she passed.) Then I bought a new 4x4 truck to assist with the gardening/harvest. Furry was worried his gardens wouldn't get harvested when/if the rains came if I didn't have a four wheel drive. So I bought a new Toyota and it got banged up on the job, bringing in the harvest in the rain. But none of that mattered, because I was getting paid well for my efforts. (Or so I thought at the time....)

Then jfurry showed up in a panic with a single six inch fan and ordered me to take down the entire harvest at once. He commanded me to pack a 12'x20'x8' drying room from floor to ceiling with soaking wet plants, seal it up, and then turn on a propane heater and two residential dehumidifiers. Needless to say, we made a bunch of mould. But I wasn't the boss and jfurry made that clear when I voiced my concern with his plan......

lw     

[judih]

this sounds like a series of highly frustrating events. (I can't help but envision the r.crumb comic  version - in all its preposterous glory)

[laughingwillow]

sistah-j: While the situation was frustrating beyond belief, it did teach me to have more restraint when dealing with unreasonable people in general. I really wanted this situation to work out and learned to bite my tongue and be more diplomatic under pressure.

My first week in Humboldt county, furry took me to visit one of his his greenhouses/indoor grow ops. During a quick walk-through, I noticed spider mites and powdery mildew had infested his scraggly, yellowing indoor garden. None of the rooms had ever been leafed and his crew were watering plants until water formed puddles on a floor with no drainage. I thought I was doing jfurry a favor by pointing out the obvious issues being overlooked by his employees as well as showing him that I had a grasp on basic gardening concepts, including pest identification. However, I was later told he took it as a slap in the face because he hadn't identified the problems himself.

As I considered jfurry to be a professional gardener, I asked him specifically to provide me with the nutrient strength and feeding schedule he wanted me to apply to the outdoor gardens I was tending. And then I followed his program to a T. Most of the plants were scraggly and went into flower much earlier than anticipated. It wasn't until late in the season that I figured out why. And by that time, furry had become an unhinged lunatic who managed to make every conversation we had turn into one about him. For instance, I was fighting powdery mildew in one of the gardens and furry kept telling me he was going to bring up the chemicals and sprayer to fight the problem but never did. So I purchased the materials myself and started spraying, but could never knock out the pm entirely. Furry never came around. He'd tell me I could expect a visit by him in the next day or so and then he'd show up two weeks later without the promised supplies and spend fifteen minutes making excuses before heading back down the hill. Finally, I brought the issue to the attention of a neighbor who lived behind the same gate and he taught me that a certain native plant also harbored the pm and that i'd have to treat those infected plants near by as well if I wanted to eradicate the problem from my gardens. Then I went to work on wiping out the powdery mildew. Furry showed up a few days later, complaining that there was still some pm on a few plants. I told him that (while I'd been waiting for equipment and chems from him that he still hadn't delivered - although I knew enough not to mention that part) Joey, the neighbor, had pointed out the native plant species which also harbored pm and the problem was finally clearing up after I began treating the nearby hosts as well as the plants in the garden. Furry looked at me like I had slapped him and told me that he knew all about the native plants that were susceptible to carrying the disease in question. Go figure...

Anyway, by the time I figured out the (vegetative) problem in the gardens, it was too late to do anything about it; the plants were already in flower. So I decided to share the revelation with jfurry when and if I got paid at the end of the season. (I already had my doubts on him following through on his word by then. Especially since all of the gardens in question looked anemic and paltry compared with my guerrilla outdoor efforts back in Ioway.) 

In hindsight, I should have held on to part of the harvest until he came through with a portion of my money. But that's not the way I want to operate. I expected the guy to follow through on his word. The least I could do was the same.

lw   

[judih]

learning to be clever in business is a field all its own.
but good to see the points of possibility
also good that your eye was right on and your instincts as healthgiver were tuned and rewarded with results.


i mean: hell, ya - you called it and started setting things right.
even in public relations, you found your way


only the business end was ridiculous - and who knew


but you honed some valuable skills

[laughingwillow]

Thanks, sistah. Always a positive spinner, you be.

One evening, after 12hours in the sun on a day that reached 100* I went to town for a smoothie and slice of pizza. A local cop pulled me over in my new truck, thinking I was riving suspiciously. I'm guessing eh thought I was driving drunk, but I was sober. problem was the new manual 6 speed was still tight as hell and I was having trouble getting the thing into the right gear while sucking on a smoothie. The po-po pulled me over and smelled weed. (No crime there.) He ordered me out of my truck and immediately upon standing up I felt a bit dizzy. I'd lost about 30 lbs and was still on blood pressure meds, so my doc warned me I might experience low blood pressure at times and should consider getting off the meds if I kept losing weight, but I never bothered to fins a doc in Mendo county. Anyway, I tried explaining to the po-lice man that I had a medical condition (blood pressure issue) and needed to sit down or at least lean up against my vehicle for a second. He declined my request and forced me to stand on the sidewalk away from any physical support to conduct a sobriety test. I asked him a few times to let me sit down, started sweating profusely and finally collapsed. The cops thought i was faking and apparently stood me up and let em fall down again. (At least that's what the cop told me happened after I came to on the ground.) As soon as I came to, I felt fine and told one of the officers I was ready for the tests. And then I passed them with flying colors. The cops searched my truck, took my meds, busted up my jars and then sent me on my way with no tickets but rather a notice to contact the dmv concerning my fitness to drive. 

On monday morning I went to see a doctor and was told I couldn't get seen until Thursday. I then called the California DMV, and explained what had happened. Three days later I went to see a doctor before going to the PO and finding a letter from the dmv suspending my license for medical reasons. I got a letter from the doctor, appeal the decision and contacted Furry for advice. He turned me on to a local lawyer who agreed to participate in the appeal process. The dmv witch looked over the paperwork from the doc and asked me why he hadn't signed off on my medical mj use. I explained it was an oversight on my part. I'd been upfront with my ned doc on the med mj issue and he had no problem with it. However, she apparently didn't believe me and requested a note from the med mj doctor instead and gave me less than a week to procure it. (That doc was on vacation and unavailable.)

So I snuck back into town and saw my new GP. He signed off on my med mj use. I called my lawyer and explained what I'd done. She was sure the dmv wouldn't accept my physician's approval and never bothered to send the info to the dmv. I called her back and led her by the hand through the logic of my actions. My new GP had been allowed to sign off on the other meds I had been taking that were prescribed by a physician in Iowa, so he should also be able to sign off on the med mj recommended by another physician in California. The problem as I saw it, was that the dmv rep didn't believe me when I told her it was an oversight on my part when I didn't get the doc to sign off on the med mj in the first place and figured I'd only et a medical mj approval from a doc approving of the mj. But my new general practitioner DID sign off on the med mj and I was pretty sure that was all that mattered.

Furry left me on top of that hill by myself for two weeks with no drivers license. he told me it was no big deal to drive on a suspended license and that he had done the same, years back for an extended period of time. I ended up sneaking into town for supplies and finally talked a friend from Iowa into flying out on my dime to cart me around until the issue was resolved. In the mean time, when furry finally came up the hill, I explained how the lawyer, imo, was a piece of shit who didn't even understand the dmv's request. However, by that time, I realized that every conversation we had revolved around jfurry, in his head and he would take that as a personal insult. So I explained to him that it was a good thing we had the chance to use the new lawyer in a minor court case to find out she was basically worthless before needing a lawyer for something serious. He still took offense. Furry blew up and asked me if I'd ever considered that the lawyer might be right and that maybe she knew more about the law than I did.  He said he felt like he really needed to play the devils advocate on this one. Then he left me, alone, to ponder his words of "encouragement." And to be honest, I felt devastated by his reaction to my problem. I was all alone, on top of that hill, tending his gardens and having to sneak into town for supplies with no assistance from "the boss."

A week or so later, we had another hearing with the DMV. They accepted my doctor's clearance to drive, as I expected they would and then told me I could get my license back after taking a written and driving test they would schedule for EIGHT WEEKS LATER. At least my friend was scheduled to arrive in a few days. he drove me around and helped build the drying house and take in the harvest and trim. Furry paid him a small amount for his efforts and I was stuck for the lion's share.

We tore the shack down after finishing the drying/trimming and were told by Furry that he'd be up by about noon to give us some cash on our way out of town. he showed up at about 9pm with a little cash for me and my friend. (Way less than the partial payment we had agreed upon.) The money was enough to get me back home and to partially pay off my driver. Furry told me that when I came back with my wife for her exams, I should drive instead of fly because I'd be going home with way more cash than I could take on a plane. When I commented about having to wait until 9pm to basically get stiffed before getting on the road he told me that he also had a long drive ahead of him so I shouldn't complain. Go figure......       

[judih]

in my current and humbly accepted role as re-framer of bizarre life experiences, i must admit that this last episode is a little challenging.


there's a lot of simply trying to truck through life on your part and a bunch of non-comprehending others making it all absurd (notable exception: fine friend who agreed to drive you and work with ya, and too bad that the friend also was an economic weight on your shoulders when the boss should've been responsible)


beware of lawyers - that's a good lesson.
we, too, have been fooled by a so-called expert lawyer doing little for the client.


p.s. i trust your weight is steadying and you're doing well

[laughingwillow]

I've actually gained a bit of weight back since leaving California, (Started at 195 lbs, dropped down to 165 last summer and am now at about 175.)

I didn't learn until much later that the cop had fabricated his report to the dmv by saying that I had stepped out of my truck and immediately fell to the ground, without warning, hitting my head and going into convulsions. (The truth was that I asked repeatedly to sit down, told him the reason why and then fell onto my butt (twice) and never went to my back or hit my head.)

By the time the season was done and I was waiting on top of the hill for a paycheck, jfurry owed me about $78,000 in wages as well as over $1,000 in gardening expenses I had covered. I was expecting he'd pay me the agreed upon amount of $20,000 up front as well as covering HIS expenses I'd  payed out of pocket to keep the operation running. Instead, he showed up nine hours late and told me that the lawyer had called him demanding payment ($1,500) so he had covered that for me. However, instead of that amount being deducted from the $78.000 that he owed me, he was withholding the expense money I'd had coming. Oh, and then the agreed upon downpayment of $20,000 was downsized to $5,000 with no prior notice - Take it or leave it.....     

[laughingwillow]

Not that I was perfect or anything.... Jfurry probably has a reasonable gripe against me at the end of the season. (And he never let me forget it, either.)

At the beginning of the year, furry came up the hill with plants for the holes and put them in without labeling any of them. And it was my first season working with those genetics, so I had no clue what was what. Then when harvest time came around he pretty much ordered me to get all of them out of the ground at once and fill the drying room to the gills, immediately. So everything was unidentified and then mixed up on the drying lines. When it came time to trim the flowers, I made the decision to just put it all together. When he came up the hill to collect the finished product he got pissed off that things hadn't been sorted. Then he reminded me of that fact every time we talked after that for the next few months. he said the dispensaries wouldn't give him top dollar unless it was sorted. So I volunteered to spend some time separating the greenish from the purplish flowers and he declined my offer. But it was apparent that he was still pissed off.

The last time I saw him (in LA) when I went out to collect my pay, he showed up at my hotel a few hours after he claimed he'd be there. I was reclining on the bed, watching the boob tube. He sat in a chair and stared at me for a bit before saying, "Its a good thing you are leaning back like that." 

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Because if you were leaning forward that would mean you were being aggressive with me and I'd either have to put you in your place or ignore it," he replied.

By that point, I was accustomed to jfurry's weirdness and wanted my money bad enough to just smile and go back to looking at the tv. it was only later in the day that I learned he had no intention of paying me off that trip down. I should have figured something was up earlier in the week when he was almost impossible to get ahold of by phone. he claimed he was having problems with his phone and that the only way to get ahold of him was to text his wife and then she could text him. So we played that game. Then when we were driving over to his safe house, I glanced at his phone on the dash. Furry must have read my mind.

"Don't be surprised if that phone rings," he stated. "Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't." 

I just nodded my head like a moron. Man, I wanted that money badly....     

[judih]

as you write this, i'd love to see his side of the story - not to shed doubt but to see how his mind framed this chunk of life.


no phone, don't be surprised if it rings, what phone
gather the harvest, fast, what you didn't sort it
lie back, be passive, or else


and so on

[laughingwillow]

Trust me, sistah, I'd also be interested in hearing jfury's take on that period of time. Matter of fact, I tried to phone him the other day to at least leave a message on his machine about this thread but he has apparently blocked my phone from being able to get through to his number. Not that I can really blame him. I'd been calling and leaving messages every couple of weeks asking when he was going to pay me. Toward the end, I was pissed enough that I started asking him when he was grow a pair of balls and answer his phone to at least tell me he was stiffing me.

On one hand, furry had promised to pay me the full amount of wages for the season no matter what happened. He made the comment that even if the feds came in and tore down every plant, I'd still get paid in full. On the other hand, wild pigs DID manage to get into one garden and eat every single plant. Twice. His crew and I had erected fences before planting around four garden sites. We'd been told there were wild pigs roaming the property by our neighbors. County law also said that any med mj farm between 25 and 99 plants registered with the county needed to be fenced. And as jfurry had promised me that our operation would be legally registered with the county, it seemed like the wise thing to do. Of course, he never did pay the fee to register our gardens with the county sheriff. That was just one more broken promise.

Anyway, his crew was supposed to be expert at construction fences. But even I could tell that the first one we put up was done shoddily. I voiced my concern and the next three we put up were constructed a lot tighter. Things seemed to be going smoothly until the head hillbilly neighbor realized there were Mexicans helping put in fencing those few days. (He was a bit of a drunken racist who carried a pistol strapped to his overalls.) And when Francisco accidentally locked the drunken hillbilly's padlock out of the chain, effectively locking him onto the property, he was smashed and pissed off. I got a call on my cell alerting me to what had happened and headed down the hill to unlock the gate. When we got to the spot in the road crossing the neighbor's property, the head hillbilly was standing in the middle of the road with pistol in hand. I knew he was a racist who used to fraternize with the Hell's Angles, so I told the fellows to stay in the truck while I worked things out. Then I approached the drunken neighbor and apologized profusely for the error, telling him that I had been the one to lock his padlock out of the chain. (There was no way I was going to blame Francisco at that point.I was really afraid for his safety if the drunken racist knew the truth.) But nothing I said could calm the guy down; he just got stumbling drunk madder and madder. And then all of a sudden he pointed the gun at my face. I turned sideways, raised my hand toward the gun  and ducked out of the way while asking him to holster his weapon. Then he acted like he was slapped in the face, looked at the pistol pointed my way, almost surprised that he was brandishing the it in that manner and then put it back in the holster on his hip. While this was a crazy incident, it really solidified my relationship with the neighbors in the end. I never called the sheriff. (Dude would have done jail time for brandishing a weapon in that manner.) And he knew that I could have gotten him in deep shit, but chose not to press the issue.) He even came up the hill to my camp the next day to apologize. 

A day or so after I applied bat guano to the plant beds, wild pigs jacked the gate of the first garden and stripped every plant to the ground. I called furry to tell him what happened and then immediately went down to the neighbors and explained what had happened. Joey was nice enough to give me enough plants to fill ALL of the 25 now empty holes as well as a few empty holes on another garden next to my camp site. (Jfurry had not brought enough plants up initially to fill all 25 pots in any of the gardens. And while I'd been attempting to transplant females from the sets of three unsexed plants put in each hole, untangling roots and transplanting seemed to shock the gals to the point that I felt it would produce more medicine in the end by leaving two females in each hole that ended up sexing out that way.) I felt pretty good about the situation until a few days later when I went down to water that garden and found that the wild pigs had returned and found another way under the wire and stripped the garden in question bare once again. So we were down to 75 holes with only about 67 containing plants.

How did I know our neighbor had extra plants? Good question..... The landlord had initially told us that there were seven garden sites on the 350 acre property. However, I could only locate five of them initially. So I had walked the entire hillside looking for missing gardens early on. And I'd finally managed to locate, what I thought, was a sixth. One day the landlord showed up and I asked him about the sixth garden. When I pointed out the trail to the site in question leading off the main driveway it was obvious from his reaction that he had no idea a garden was located back on that ridge.....           

[judih]

the intricacies of neighbourly relations
legal v.s. illegal


wild pigs -
and all within a few days


is jf planning next season i wonder

[dendro]

Sounds like those hills are chockers with gardens! I had no idea the grow scene was so intensive in that area.

I've had to shoot a boar before, bugger just got too comfortable and too fat on my property, did a lot of damage (during a drought, another killed one of my big breadfruit trees by stripping the bark). I've had a clutch of piglets rooting under my citrus lately, but luckily they leave the chacruna and chali alone, or I would prolly be gunning for them too.

I no like da peegs... 

[laughingwillow]

Our landlord owned two 350 acres parcels. One on each side of the canyon. One side had three plots totaling 99 holes, more or less. Our side had five plots of 25, that he knew of. Turns out the neighbors had a secret garden on OUR property and had for years, apparently. I was just the first tenant to discover their clandestine grow op encroaching on our property. (turns out they had also been stealing water from our well/storage tanks by running a secret line off one of our mains and down their side of the hill. My reward for discovering their secret operation was being ordered to confront the neighbors in question and demand a portion of their harvest for my boss and landlord. Needless to say, I wasn't real comfortable confronting drunken Paul and his pistol over a matter which really didn't concern me and in which I had no vested interest. Especially since his son-in-law, Joey had gifted us thirty some plants after the pigs took out the lowest garden. And then there was the fact that these neighbors lived behind the same locked gate as I did and knew the property well. it would have been so easy for them to rip us off if motivated to do so. I was attempting to nurture and guard gardens spread out over 350 acres by myself. And any time I went to town, I was forced to take a road leading right through their property and past their trailer. They had short cuts to our upper gardens they could take without being seen. Paul could have simply worked on a piece of equipment in his yard and notified Joey, Cletus and April May by phone if/when I was approaching up the drive on my way in with supplies. SO I wanted to maintain a good relationship with the neighbors. At least until our harvest was in and gone. But jfurry was pissed when he found out that Joey had no intention of paying them for using our property for their own grow site. Especially after gifting us the plants after the pigs came through. Matter of fact, the hillbilly clan below wanted to negotiate a deal to use the property the next year as well. 

As for the wild pigs, they were a brazen lot. I prolly counter twenty to thirty in the herd, ranging from small yearlings to 300 lb boars. I chased a bunch up the hill one night coming in from town and actually had a few trapped in a canyon-like stretch of the driveway running in front of my truck. I contemplated running one over until I sized it up a little better and realized I would probably cause more damage to my vehicle than the boar in question so I backed off.

One day shortly after rescuing an abandoned dog at the bottom of the driveway, Snappy herded a bunch of 100-150 lb pigs right up to my camp from behind the nearest garden. The dog and I started chasing the herd down the hill in hopes of running them off the property. However, after a short chase, the pigs stopped, formed a defensive line and then a pig on each end doubled back, one coming at the dog on the right side and the other charging me. I fought the pig off with a tree branch hurled its way. This pattern continued half way down the hill until I tired and left Snappy to chase the herd alone. Soon they were out of sight. I then heard snarling and the yelp of a dog. About a half hour later, Snappy limped back to camp. I didn't find any blood or bite marks on her, but she had no desire to tangle with the herd of pigs after that encounter.

After that, I started carrying a madrone walking stick loaned to me by a friend in town. And the next time jfurry came out for a short visit, I swear to God that he didn't appear to believe me that I'd taken to carrying that staff for protection from pigs. rather it seemed he took that development as a threat to his personal safety because by then, everything that happened was all about him; at least in his mind......             

[judih]

like living in parallel planets: jfurry's somewhere in its own orbit
different perspectives - one fueled by opinion and another fueled by actual reality


those damn pigs - what a set-up - army maneuvres worth remembering

& poor Snappy.


but it sounds like there could've been a good unified force if jf had allowed bartering -  prop for cooperation