harvest of '05

I look into his dark eyes and laugh. His long black curls cradled specs of cornmeal that had drifted through the air during the ritual. Wow Marc is getting grey hair that seems pretty sudden, must be the harvest. Ah yea, the harvest of ’05.

How grateful I am for the abundance of the harvest this year. I don’t know what I would have done without it. Twenty bucks an hour and gentle time spent with beautiful friends, neighbors and not yet friends. My world had just been busted wide open, taken a 180-degree turn in LA. I had barely made it home, penniless, car-less, houseless, and loveless. Thank god, Ala, Buda, the goddess for the harvest of ’05.

Silently I work the scissors, first the sun leaves, using the sharp little points to snip the stem as close as possible without catching the bud. Then the sugar shake, sorry to see all those crystals go, but knowing they will make a kick ass batch of magic cookies or some dank bubble hash. So much crystal ….the goo builds up on my blades making my hands work harder, annoying little mounds of brown crystal-goo growing with each stroke. Dark sticky finger hash making my eyes burn when I accidentally rub them. I guess that’s why they named it afgooie. Ganja, ah sweet ganja so soothing and aromatic, I feel at peace for the first time in a week.

The sun warms my face, the green leaf keeps coming and the trimmed buds keep leaving. Taken to the drying shed, and hung with care from the fishing-line rows, row after row, marked with colored strings to distinguish the different strains. Every inch of every building, shed, tent, even outhouses full of hanging bud. Wood stoves and fans powered by purring generators heating tents, teepees and yurts, humidity meters registering the perfect climate for drying. Halls lined with open brown bags filled with trimmed weed in various stages of curing. Pounds and pounds, on the washer, tucked into barrels, stashed in the scotch broom, stacked in Rubbermaid tubs on the porch. School buses with special, tuck away, hand made trimming boxes designed with silk screens and glass to catch every spec of displaced crystal and keif

“Camp Cut, that’s what we’re gunna call it from now on” Marc held a bandana to his face blood dripping from his nose. He had slipped in the garden and a piece of rebar had sliced through his nostril... seven stitches from the local clinic. The day before he had snipped his finger with his clippers and cut it to the bone. He called himself clumsy but we all knew it was the anxiety of the harvest manifesting. The Feds had been busting fellow growers for the past four days. Randomly it seemed, and the rumors had us all on edge. They had started a week earlier, the rumors, they had filled the air, whisping around us, whispering in our ears. ‘Dillon’s cousin’s sister, who works as a maid at the Hitching Post Inn, said the Feds are here, renting rooms. Word has it they have a list of 129 people they plan to bust. The big bust is going down on the 16th. Seven people on Jones Ln..... that must mean trimmers too. The whole Sawyer family ma pa and the kids too. They say the brother turned them in.’ Every morning we heard reports, some from the previous day Union and others third hand word of mouth. James got picked up... Mike’s kid,too... hand cuffs...helicopters buzzing.... Ed knew they had photos, he was yanking every thing tonight. Each morning people gathered at the Cafe not wanting to be home when the feds rolled in. Each night the busted ones loitered outside of Paddy’s Pub telling their sorrow filled scenarios to sympathetic ears.

But every day I trimmed and trimmed. Sometimes in silence and sometimes in cheerful conversation, sometimes in haste and sometimes in mellow meditation, but always in the trimmer’s flow. It’s funny, the flow, or should it be called the ‘stuck’. I never wanted to get up, kinda like having a cat on your lap. Just one more branch, one more basketful, one more bud. For the first few days I forgot to eat, postponed drinking water and was annoyed at having to get up to pee. When I did finally get up to stretch, my bones creaked and my muscles ached, I started daydreaming of Bernadette’s massage table. The conversation would drift towards things like food and sleep and places other than here. “Let’s go to sushi tonight. When this harvest is done we should all have party, a dance party. When this is over I’m taking you all out to Sushi City, no...Sushi on the Side! I think I’ll make a cheesecake tonight. Have you ever had an Italian cheesecake where you bake the…. and use…, but they don’t have …. at Philly's corner, we’ll have to go to Health Way." Yea right like anyone’s going to town, like any one is going anywhere. But then there are the occasional evenings meals catered by the thoughtful hosts, scrumptious dinners of tender pork loins, garden fresh raviolis in hand- made sauce, with imported wines and yummy desserts. Always a vegetarian option and always well received.

‘Seasonal workers’ we are called. When asked what I’m up to these days I reply, “ oh I’m doing some seasonal work… landscaping… gardening… or just the silent scissor snip with my fore fingers. There was a run on local market, they couldn’t keep the shelves stocked. Sally said these were the biggest days of the year, even the hottest summer day hadn’t brought in this cash flow…. and cash it was, too. Seasonal workers. It’s an industry no doubt, one that supports life on the Cliffs. Young families starting out, buying land and building homes, poor people trying to sustain, established pillars of the community invested in political change, plumbers, lawyers, carpenters, students, mothers, brothers, musicians all just trying to make ends meet, keep life going, get food on the table, make way in this world of crazy consumption, and the inflated dollar.

But it’s such a beautiful industry, the sweetest plant on the earth. It seems to have a powerful gentle spirit that fills the air with a reminder of satori. So much pride pours out of the farmers, Reed even named his plants, often referring to them as ‘the girls.’ “Have we finished Sensie? We’ll start on ‘lil girl’ this afternoon and Rex’s plant on Friday.” Rex’s plant... he had appeared one day with tear filled eyes carefully unwrapping the photo of an old Australian Shepard which lay between two pieces of parchment. Choked up, he had asked us to please give a moment of silence, of thought, of prayer to Rex…. the best dog, best friend ever…. this was his plant. Nods of agreement, Rex sure was a good dog. I remember laying under my ‘girls’ on a warm summer night the air heavy with the pungent scent of the lavender, bubble gum, and blue dot, the heavy dream-filled sleep I swam through until morning. I definitely share his fondness for growing the marijuana plant.

As I ride my bike home through the night, whiffs of skunkweed float through the air in the most peculiar places… wafting through the manzanita, seeping over neighborhood fences, and from underneath greenhouse walls…peculiar, maybe, but very consistently spaced,on my five mile ride, never more than a quarter mile between gardens. During the harvest each job has its own flavor, and name Camp cut, Lizard hill, Murphie’s land, Moonshine Rd.

You got Angies’s place with the trimming machine roaring and the leaf flying, the air full of crystal dust, discarded leaves piling up in mounds and falling off the deck. Sticky plant partials clinging to pant legs, sweaters and polar fleece, beautiful young girls working next to their friend’s papa, their old teachers –aid, their little brothers. Bruce’s hardy laugh after bending too close to the trimming fan, to jokingly distort his voice, and losing an inch and a half of his mountain man beard.

Then there is Lizard hill, late night on lizard hill. Mostly musicians or musician’s supports, festival goers, vagabonds, nomads. Trimming starts early evening and goes until ganja turns the night into musical magic, everyone’s heart opening to the call of ancient song, crawling to bed as the sun hints its arrival in the sky. Sometimes food, sometimes showers, sometimes sleep, but always mountains of ganja and plenty of fresh cool water. Food for the soul.

Camp cut....to me it is really camp peace. Clean, organized, quiet, undemanding...just plain peaceful. Chairs arranged in a shady spot with lights hung from the trees. Music flowing from the I-book and stories rolling off of gypsy tongues, tales of dancing through Africa and kayaking over wild granite drops of the Sierra rivers. To adjust the thermostat I would take off clothes or add a woolen layer, depending on where the sun stood in the sky. Big baskets to catch the shake and an assortment of very sharp scissors to please your preference, spring loaded ones for the green leaf and easy flowing handles for the dry bud. Definitely the most beautifully, hand trimmed bud on the Cliffs.

We dream the American dream, dream of places we will visit, things we will build, the schools our children will attend. We talk about the quality of our crops and speculate about next years possibilities just like other farmers throughout our country, history, time…. with one exception this crop is illegal. How strange, to imagine it illegal to grow a plant. But this group of farmers seem used to the idea of persecution. They remain, poised, waiting wondering who will go down and when; how extensive will the punishment be and how expensive the retrieval.

Still, I think this is a magical moment in history. Medicinal marijuana is becoming legal. With wavering rules and regulations, and unclear stipulations growing, and some types of consumption are becoming decriminalized. The underground faction of ganja cultivation is buzzing, one of the only industries that isn’t corporate. Small, single person and family owned farm operations catch the enchantment of old times, the warm supportive attitude of community. What will happen when /if marijuana cultivation becomes truly legal? Will it go the way of tobacco, alcohol, and food production? Now that really would be a crime.