Hemp Seeds and Politicans

No, we haven’t resolved our business banking challenges. 

Yes, Congress has passed the Safe Banking Act (for cannabis and hemp businesses), but the Senate hasn’t yet.

No, we can’t grow our operations here in Merced County. 

Yes, we’ve already moved ¼ million in sales a year north to another enclave in another town.

Yes, we’ve replaced 4 of the 5 people who quit during the shit-storm, but those jobs were created for women two counties away, because, you know, it’s still a ‘no’ to having a business permit from the county.

The hold-up on business banking is because we don’t have this permit.  We have banks in North Carolina, Nevada, and Arkansas who will take us as clients if we just had that little piece of paper.  So our growth and progress is being stalled by Merced County.  

A politician from Washington DC came to see us this week.  Someone keenly interested in hemp for the planet and the people.  I won’t say if it was a congressman, a senator, or Trump, but it was one of them . . . and the entourage.

“Hook up with a University”, the visiting important person said.

“I would love to do that, Senator, Congressman, President” (can’t say), “But the problem is the Universities themselves are engaging in a tremendous amount of corruption in regard to researching hemp and cannabis.”

“How’s that?” person-of-political-influence says.

“I will give you two recent examples.” I explained.  “One is our very own UC Merced, where a $5 million grant from an anonymous pharmaceutical company was endowed on them to prove that cannabis smoking leads to cigarette smoking.”    

The politicians roll their eyes.

“Yes, and it’s soooo very interesting that $5M was awarded but $3.5 million made it to the study group.  So there’s shit upon shit here.”

The politician nodded.

“Next example.  New York Medical Research facility.  Asking to purchase a bulk lot of our CBD oils for their study. Further questioning determines that they care far more about their money than the study, and want to give chronic pain users 3 mg a day of CBD.  Or 6, if they feel generous.  3 mg in the morning and 3 mg a night.  That is 1/10^th of the starting dosage for people in pain.  I explained that the dosage was far too small and didn’t take into account the size of the patient.  They didn’t care.  We said ‘no’ to supplying them because they are trying to prove CBD won’t help, by giving the least amount possible.”

The politician person was perturbed, but not surprised.  Sadly. 

Every attack on us this year was solved by throwing money at it.  That’s how capitalism works.  The cease and desist, ka-ching, the movement of wholesale to another enclave, ka-ching, the quitting of two finance people who both left me surprise bills, $12K vendor bill and $8K legal bill, ka-ching, lost health insurance (it turns out Anthem Blue Cross doesn’t take payment in cash), stacked up taxes that couldn’t be paid (will be paid, but even being late on all this is something we didn’t engineer!), opinion paper from the attorneys -- ka-ching.  Mastercard compliance needs us to have an office in London and it can’t be Southampton where Matt is, where the money could benefit someone in the enclave, NOOOO, it must be a WeWork office and no one in our shop benefits from that . . . .the lawyers, the fix-it guys, the list goes on.

Every job became a work-from-home job and 4 of the 6 sisters were moved off the farm in order to stay compliant with our farm mortgage, to keep homeowner’s insurance.

All of these things together caused financial chaos we are still reeling from.  We never shut down our store, we never have had any problems with our credit card processors, and we only paid salaries in cash for one week.  We never switched to cash sales as the universe seemed to encourage us to do.  

As I told every tax bureaus and professional who would listen, ‘If we have to go cash, that’s the same as shutting down, because I can’t put the sisters at risk!’

Three things are in the works to help us set ourselves right after the storm.  One, my ex-husband is likely to come through with a settlement from our court hearing in September.  Even though I have to fight for every dollar he hid, I do like to say to people ‘Do you like the farm?  My ex- bought it for us!’  And now, I am hoping this last court round awards enough to pay the debt we incurred this year and perhaps build us a greenhouse.  I can just hear it now.  “Do you like the green-house?  My ex- bought it for us!”

He’s a master at using the courts to delay, as evidence by the fact that this is our 12^th year of litigation . . . . so plan A, though sweet, and just, has to come with Plan B and Plan C.

Plan B is to raise $30K by selling our metaphor dolls and if we can do that, we take some stress off the business.  They are kind of expensive, but all hand-made by the Sisters.  They are called ‘metaphor dolls’ because they are metaphors for throw-away women.  We find them naked and forlorn at flea markets, clean them up, give them spiritual, choice-filled, purpose-driven lives, and (unlike the real weed-nuns), they smile allllll the time!

Plan C is the hemp seed crop that will be harvested in front of Dutch filmmakers the end of the month.  We are designing the seed envelopes now.  All these seeds came from clones from Big Bertha, who sprouted suddenly, out of line, on her own, without intention, in the backyard in the Spring of 2018.  By the Fall, she was the tallest and grandest and she was the plant that Nesta crawled inside on Ollie’s music video, Sex, Weed, TV.  She was amazing and forgiving, and we abused her for film because she grew out of line.  There is a lesson in here.  She wasn’t important to us – because she grew out of line. 

I remember the day that Rudy said, “Sister Kate, look” and he pointed to a little plant on the ground that was struggling to meet the sun, only about six inches tall.  “How did that get there?” I asked.  He shrugged.  “Just happened, I guess.  Random seed, wind, it happens.”

We just stood there for a moment staring at her.  “I guess you should put a little fence around her so that no one steps on her.”

“She’s out of line.” Rudy said, pointing to the rows of plants that were geometrically symmetrical.

“So am I.” I said dryly.  “Most of the time.”  Rudy must have liked my answer, because he took real good care of her and she grew up to give us over 12% CBD and less than ½% THC, as well as thirty clones that became our long season crop for 2019.  

By the way, we didn’t set out to make a seed crop.  Because of the hemp ban, because of the cease and desist, and because of the loss of banking, all in the same month, we really thought we were going to have to shut down the business and move entirely to another county.  One doesn’t put a crop in the ground if they are planning to leave.  It was mid-July before we planted and we decided that because a plant crop would not be abundant, and because all the plants were clones of Big Bertha, we would engineer for a seed crop.  That’s how we got here.  Hoping to make lemons from lemonade.

Blogging and Flogging

Yesterday, a group of Sisters drove up to Sacramento for the Healing Arts fair. Sister Nia took these photos. You haven't met her, yet, but you will.

Sister Freya stocking up on healing stones.

During the two days preceding our girls-day-out, we had an uncomfortable number of interviews. Skype interviews, where we all take turns sitting at my computer, the only one set up for Skype in the office, connected to the only good headset we own, and there was much chatter and concern about the interviews.

When I have media, I always warn them that I’m the chatty one.  If they want a lot of words without a lot of effort, they speak to me.  But then I also warn them:

(a) these Sisters didn’t come to work with me for media attention.  They didn’t come to be public speakers.  They came to made medicine and work with the plant.  So, speaking in front of a camera doesn’t come easily to any of them. 

(b) the young ones haven’t found their voices yet.

That’s how we define it here.  Some have found their voices, some have not.  I am 57 years old and got my voice fifteen or twenty years ago.  Sister Freya is only forty and she found her voice five to ten years ago. It’s not reasonable to expect young women, twenty-three and twenty-four to have found their voices. They haven’t really lived enough, yet.

Vegan eats!  Affirmation that we are out of the valley.

As soon as we got in the car at seven forty-five yesterday morning, Sister Nia asked Sister Freya how her interview went the evening before.  And Sister Freya laughed and said she found her ‘interview-super-power’.  She did a reading on the interviewer. 

Sister Freya sees spirits and in this case, there was much unresolved between the interviewer and her father, who crossed over by suicide – we don’t know exactly when.  But that spirit was there, wanting to speak to his daughter, and Sister Freya, faced with sending him away or offering some healing to this young woman on the TV screen, chose for the latter -- true to her calling as a healer.

Although Sister Freya was delighted that she got out of the interview, the whole scheduled hour given over to medium-ship between the deceased father and his daughter-in-pain-on-the-earth-plane, Sister Nia and I were sad that the young reporter had to deal with such serious tragedy.  We are both empaths and we both felt kicked in the gut at the news.  Without words spoken between us, Sister Freya felt our sadness and added, “Oh, it’s worse than that, even.  Her mom isn’t handling it at all and is at risk of suicide herself.  I’ve scheduled two more calls with them this weekend.”

That was some solace.  The Sisters can do something.  Sister Freya is intervening to offer medicine.  A silent prayer went up for her success, and then the conversation returned to her glee over having dodged the bullet of the interview.

“You really don’t like interviews?  It’s all basic stuff!  You can say what’s in your heart.  You know that whatever you say will be ok, right?”

“I don’t mind interviews,” she said, “But this is wayyyyy better!  I will become known as the Sister who has never been interviewed, because I always do readings and distract them by helping them with their own personal issues!  It’s brilliant!”

On the remainder of the drive up highway 99, we talked about many things. Bullets and pellets, our name for a new CBD product we are developing, the development of our rosary to help us count during our chants, the wholesale program and anticipated demand.  We spent a few minutes comparing notes on family gossip that they don’t know comes right back to us, because in every Sisters’ family, there is at least one silent supporter among the haters.  If our families say bad stuff about us, we hear about it.  If a lawmaker or law-enforcement person says something bad about us, we hear it.  We believe the concept of ‘having a mole’ is ancient wisdom and contributes to the survival of the tribe.

In some cases, the families are split over the issue of our very existence. Mom’s side is a group of supporters, Dad’s side is suspicious haters.  Or vice versa. In my own family, some believe we are mocking Catholic nuns.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  First, we have great respect for their excellence in teaching and nursing, their vast contributions, and we strive to emulate their system-run, dependable standards of excellence.  But secondly, and more importantly, it is the very fact that the people out protesting miss having the nuns and priests at their sides, fighting the good fights right there alongside the working class angry -- it is that fact that called this Order into being.  The people asked for us.  Thirdly, it’s not a competition and fourthly, we are Beguine-revivalists.  The only ‘nun moniker’ we claim is the ‘weed-nun’ handle.  It says everything in two succinct syllables.

I find it ironic that the people who should be most embracing and supportive of this new age path we are walking, should be family and local politicians and lawmakers.  It is ironic that we have so many followers from around the world who understand us, love us, support us, but in the arms of our tribe, we suffer the bearing of false witness.

Left to Right:  Sister Gina, daughter Ava, Sister Kate and Sister Freya

Before heading back to Merced, we visited a community college agriculture-day fair and bought some clary sage and white sage plants for our garden.

Just before arriving at our destination in Sacramento, we gave a little time to our manifesting powers and spoke of our dreams of travel.  Two of us are going to Brazil in May to speak at a conference on cannabis and morality and we collectively hope that that turns into more offers from other countries.  Personally, I want to take a trip to Greece, perhaps with stops in France (to see a Bougienage), England and Ireland.  Except, I lamented, I really want to travel with all the Sisters and that would shut us down.  “We will have to take turns,” I concluded.

That led me to reminding the Sisters that I am still the sole voice of the Sisterhood.  Ever-on-the-look-out for ways to lighten my load and make a system-run organization not dependent of any one Sister – ever ensuring I have future choices – choices to go, choices to send someone who would represent us well, I encouraged Nia to consider public relations (social media posting) on behalf of the Sisters. I threw out a couple of topics that would be good starter subjects, promised her that I would get her access to the dropbox for photos, and pushed my personal agenda along its path.

“Think about writing and sharing your wisdom.”  That was the last thing I said before shutting off the engine of the car and embarking on our adventure at the Healing Arts fair.

An hour later we were in a group reading with Dr. Christian Toren, a Master Clairvoyant from Burbank, California, who works primarily with the archangels and he was telling Nia that Archangel Gabriel says she has to share her knowledge.  He told her that she’s been collecting it all her life and she needs to get it out, get it on paper, share it with the people. 

I was kind of impressed that he went there, first, and, sitting right next to Nia, I said “Blogging, blogging, blogging”.  But every time I said it, Dr. Toren winced, and finally, the third time I repeated it, he said “No, please, no flogging!”

“Flogging?” I said, horrified, “Good God, I said BLOGGING!  It means ‘writing’!”

It was my turn to be horrified, but Sister Freya and Sister Nia were both laughing so hard, hands over their mouths, trying to stifle. 

“Good God!” I said again, “What kind of nuns do you think we are?”

Dr. Toren apologized, but he, too, was laughing so hard he had to wipe tears out of his eyes.

We must have had some mischief-making gnome-interference, because he went right back to talking to Nia about why she must write, about how her ‘not writing’ is affecting her stomach and sleep, and then exclaimed “You are meant to inspire!”  The noise level of the convention hall had risen a bit and Nia didn’t hear him properly, although Freya and I heard him clearly.  Nia looked horrified, while Freya and I were nodding and smiling in agreement with his words.  We realized quickly that Nia had turned pale.  “I was meant to expire?” she said. “When?”

“INSPIRE!” we all three hollered at once.  “Inspire!” I said again, to make sure she heard properly this time.  Good grief.  Blogging, flogging, inspire, expire, what the heck?

Brother Andy hooked us up.

www.sistersofcbd.com (click the ‘shop’ link at the top to see our products)

www.sistersofthevalley.biz (personal library with FAQ’s, Testimonials, Media History, Videos)

The Inauguration of Trump and the Up-rising of the Women

I have to get something off my chest.

For over two months now, there has been a moral tug-of-war going on in my heart.  It is the tug-of-war between sensible commerce and moral duty.  It is a tug of war that kept my political views off of our facebook page for the business.  Mostly.

But I am done with that.  I am, today, officially done with that.

It happened with the Women’s March on Washington and the solidarity march we attended here in the central valley.  It happened because so many people posted angry comments under our photos.  We were harshly judged for standing in solidarity with the women.

We are Beguine revivalists.  If you don’t know who the Beguines were, maybe you should look them up.  They were progressive activists for women, in the middle ages.  Their core mission was to lift women from poverty by giving them housing security, food security, and training, and jobs.  This is who we are.  This is what we want to be.

Our capitalist enterprises are there to support our spirituality and activism.  It is not the other way around.  Our capitalist enterprises are for the women, for the people.  Our progressive activism is for the women, for the people.  Our spirituality?  That’s for us. 

Here’s what you need to understand about our origins.  This order was given birth by the Occupy movement.  Our origins are in protesting.  While out with the people, the formalization of this order came as a result of so many people asking for it – from so many asking for an order that has, as its holy trinity -- service, activism, and spirituality.

We grew a business from nothing, two years ago, to employing nine folks full-time and another nine to twelve in various specialty positions, and this all began from five thousand anarchist, activist, facebook friends.

Let’s just take a quick stroll through what we are all about. 

Mission statement: 

The Sisters of the Valley is a newly born, new-age group of Sisters whose fundamental mission is to get plant-based medicine into the hands of those in need -- and to do that in a responsible and sustainable manner.   The mission is supported by their founding principles, which are to honor Mother Earth and her intelligent plant, provide a valuable product to the people, empower other women to succeed, and participate in peaceful progressive activism.

Vows:

#1  Chastity.  Do you think that when we take a vow to privatize our sexuality and keep ourselves covered at all times in public, do you think we can support a pussy-grabbing president?  How does that work?

#2 Activism.  Yes, activism is a vow.  So now, tell me, if activism is a vow we take, do you not expect us to join protests?

#3 Service.  This is our medicine-making.  We use non-psychoactive cannabis to make tinctures and topical salves.  We have hundreds of testimonials from people around the world thanking us for alleviating their suffering.  Trump is trying to appoint a man who has contempt in his heart for this intelligent plant.  Do you expect us to get behind that?

#4 Ecology.  This is the part of our vow where we respect and repair mother earth, try to reduce our foot-print, migrate to a more plant-based diet, and more friendly co-existence with her.  By Trump’s Exxon appointment, do you think he is taking an earth-friendly approach?

#5 Living Simply.  Trump represents the opposite of that.  He is all glitz and glamour and largess and wastefulness. 

Which political party do you think best represents the ethics and values of the Sisters?  The Green Party, naturally, and Bernie, who is green at heart.  With a few controlling our media propaganda machine, with a two-party grid-locked system, with DNC corruption, neither had a chance. 

People like to come onto our facebook posts and tell me ‘get behind your president’.  No, sorry, we cannot.  He represents the opposite of all we stand for.

One more thing, our business grew fifteen times the second year over the first.  We have, since the very beginning -- sold out of every jar, every bottle, of every product we have ever made.  We have hundreds of stores around the world who want to carry our products and over seven thousand loyal repeat retail customers.    

We do well because of our commitment to excellence, our commitment to making and protecting the medicines in an ancient-ritual spiritual environment.  We do well because of our commitment to using best business practices, to being ‘audit ready’ at all times, to ensure all taxes are paid, that no cheats are used, ever.  We do well because we are committed to making our customers happy and we are committed to being responsive to their calls, emails, and inquiries from many different social media platforms.

Sometimes I wonder if we were Trump supporters, if we adopted Trump’s business ethics, would our medicine do as well?  If we meditated on Trump-think, instead of the suffering of the people, would our products still do what they do for the people?  Do any of you seriously feel any compassion radiating from this new President of ours?  Do any of you believe we could be in a prayerful, spiritual, meditative environment with a picture of Trump hanging on our wall?

If you think you are punishing us by refusing to buy from us because of our politics – you are not.  I have maintained since the beginning that if we only had the progressive activists around the world supporting us, we will always grow and thrive.

Are we angry at the Trump-voters?  Heck, no!  The decision the American public was faced with was horrible, dismal, disturbing.  In the end, we had a choice between two shadow characters and the people chose the one who is 'out' about his darkness; they chose authenticity over pretense.  We don’t blame.  We don’t shame.  We accept that everyone did the best they could, with the deck stacked as it was, against the people.

The American people chose to throw a torch to the system.  One half of the people didn’t vote.  One fourth of the people voted for Hillary.  One fourth voted for Trump.  He does not have and never held majority support.   I take comfort in that.

So please, stop threatening us, as if we rely on your purchases.  We do not.  We try to be sensible in regard to our capitalist enterprises, but you are asking us to support a man who mocks our vows.  You are asking us to ignore our vows and mission.  It is too much to ask.  If it offends you, there are many places you can find CBD and it does not offend us if you wish to buy from others.  

On another note, I have had a half dozen women declare that they will not buy from us because they perceive us to be ‘pro-abortion’.  We try to explain -- it isn’t abortion we are proponents of, it’s just that we trust the women to make their own decisions for their own bodies.  Have you read our mission statement?  Regulating the vagina is the opposite of women empowerment.

We are well aware of the fact that first term abortions didn’t ‘become a sin’ in the Catholic church until one hundred years ago, coincidentally, at the same time the intelligent plant became demonized.  It is the same time that mankind stepped up the effort to trash the planet.  Do women not see that the divine feminine is under attack all the way around on this planet?  From the planet, herself, to the women who occupy it, to the vaginas of the women who occupy it?  All are under attack.

We are well aware of the fact that where women have food, housing, healthcare and education security, when they have equal rights and equal opportunity and equal pay in the work force, they have two children.  Inside a marriage.  Zero abortions.  Zero population growth.  So we are trying to understand why people want to regulate women’s vaginas?  Why wouldn’t you want to fix the root cause of the reason for abortions instead of just attacking the women on a moral basis?  Why does one woman want to control the vagina of another woman?  Is that thinking sticking to us because of 200,000 years of male energies dominating the planet?  Can we not shed ourselves of that and think only in terms of Sisterhood?

Here’s a special little note to the men, who have the propensity to give orders to the Sisters without thinking them through.  In the past month, I’ve had two men reach out to us – one to say ‘stick to weed growing and get the hell out of politics, you are making yourselves look stupid’ – and one to say ‘stick to weed growing and stay the hell out of spirituality, you are not a trained theologian.’

My answer to them both?  Sorry, we don’t take orders from men, but it’s cute that you tried.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.  I feel so much better now.

What’s New at the Abbey: CBD Laws and Business Mountains

The Fall harvest isn’t quite complete, although we’ve begun with the annual tradition of having all the carpets cleaned, filters changed, ducts cleaned, in the aftermath of bringing in the crops.  The Sisters of the Valley was a dream, three years ago, and today, I am happy to report that I share the view from the mountaintop with Sister Darcy, and she shares my vision of what we shall become.

I can’t speak for the people’s whose lives intersect with mine, but I feel like my personal view of life is that I climbed an impossible mountain and now, uitendelijk, I am breathing fresh air, hope, progress once again.  I look down on the many plateaus upon which I got stuck, and the many times I circled hopelessly at the bottom of a precipice, making no progress, working so hard just to stay in place.  The theme song from Orange is the New Black speaks to my heart, to the sadness that overcame me when I was stuck:  “Taking steps is easy, standing still is hard.”

After imagining Sisters of the Valley as a business, as a life-style concept, after fomenting ideas and concepts for years, this was the year she was born.  And she was born to the world with dignity and honor and five-star testimonials.  A year ago, we were focused on supplying California dispensaries at wholesale, high-THC tinctures, salves and teas.  Today, we are focused on retail sales of high CBD products that we sell nationwide and internationally.  It’s kind of like the business was born a boy, but turned girl by the time she was one year old.  THC medicine is the masculine side of cannabis, where CBD is the feminine.  (I just made that up.)

I think, sometimes, dreams are like cats.  You have to ignore them, for them to come to you.  It had always been my dream to drag the poverty out of the valley (or at least a few residents or a community), by infusing the valley with income from the rest of the world.  It was how the wine and almond and pomegranate businesses were born here, and how they thrive.  (You can’t really understand the poverty here until you’ve lived here.)  When I began Sisters of the Valley, however, I was just focused on making a living for myself, in the aftermath of the family calamity and my personal brush with homelessness.

As part of a market trial, halfway through the year, we put our non-psychotropics in an on-line store and our focus and our prayers and our energies were suddenly brought to where they belong.  The dispensary bread-and-butter business comes from the stoner population.  The CBD customers are those that are interested in the healing and physical pain relief.  The turn of direction brought us home.

I don’t know why the folks in the industry decided to get on the CBD internet sales band-wagon just this year, when the law changed eleven years ago.  But this past year has certainly been the year that CBD products went mainstream.  I suspect it has something to do with the special strains that have been bred to be high CBD and that has to do with modifying Mother Nature, and that’s a process that takes awhile.

On February 6, 2004 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a unanimous decision in favor of the HIA (Hemp Industry Association) in which Judge Betty Fletcher wrote, “….non-psychoactive hemp is not included in Schedule I. The DEA has no authority to regulate drugs that are not scheduled, and it has not followed procedures required to schedule a substance. The DEA’s definition of “THC” contravenes the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and cannot be upheld”. 

The net effect of this ruling nearly twelve years ago, is that we had to mess with Mother Nature, not to improve her, but to satisfy laws that are silly, anyway.  Some people complain that the CBD medicine (alone) give them headaches, but if taken with THC, they don’t get that side effect.  So local folks with chronic pain, or with cancer, can buy the CBD tincture from us, but have to get a cannabis card to acquire the THC tincture through a licensed dispensary, and basically, what I see happening is that we are breaking up Mother Nature, just to discover she was better in one piece.  (Bernie wants to take the whole plant off the Schedule I drug list, and, yes, he’s our man and yes, we will be ‘activating’ for him.)

In the past weekend, we held an ‘all weekend conference’ with the newly-formed Sisters of the Valley board.  We made some strategy decisions.  We reviewed financials.  We took a tour of the farm.  We narrowed our marketing focus.  We decided on Equity.  We decided on Incorporation State.  Many things.

The City has refused us our business license and we have to figure out a way to appeal that decision.  No surprise, but the local planning office doesn’t know CBD from catshit.  The farm mortgage people have demanded a ton of documents . . . yet we are hoping to go out on a road trip next week to Humboldt County to acquire CBD wholesale for our next batches.  Winter crop planning is in process.  We have the college kids coming for Thanksgiving, followed by a special visitor coming from Croatia on December first, then farm-house interior painting and floors to lay, a college graduation ceremony at UC Davis December 13^th, and a move to the farm just after Winter Solstice. 

We have more mountains to climb for the business, of course.  The one we just climbed was the first of four.  We had to produce a quality product.   The second mountain to climb is in securing profit.  We are beginning this month to put 15% of receipts in a ‘profit savings’ to treat profit as if it is an expense and, thereby, protect it. 

The third mountain is quality of life and ease of operations.  That means, once we climb the next mountain, the Sisters can work on toning down the twelve hour work days.  And after we climb those, we climb the one that’s all about legacy and making a system-built enterprise that goes on long after we are all six feet under.

More mountains.  But as the song says, taking steps is easy, standing still is hard.

First in Cannabis Kate Series:  Central Valley Cannabis Operations

Second in Cannabis Kate Series:  Back Then (Living Under Cannabis Prohibition)

Third in Cannabis Kate Series:  So Kate, What Is Your Experience with Growing?

Fourth in Cannabis Kate Series:  Central Valley Cannabis Landscape:  A Tribute to the Activists

Fifth in Cannabis Kate Series:  Throw Away People

Sixth in Cannabis Kate Series:  We Have a Win

Seventh in Cannabis Kate Series:  Holy Trinity of the Clitorii

Eighth in Cannabis Kate Series:  If You Build It, They Will Come

Ninth in Cannabis Kate Series:  Be Like Florence Nightingale

Tenth in Cannabis Kate Series:  CBD - Not Just for Goats (Part I)

Eleventh in Cannabis Kate Series:  CBD – Not Just for Goats (Part II) 

Twelfth in Cannabis Kate Series:  The Gansta Side of Growing Ganja

CBD - Not Just for Goats - Part II

Link to Part I

 “You don’t happen to know anyone with CBD, do you?”  I asked Sister Susan, three days before the commencement of the Autumn moon cycle.  I quickly went on to explain that we were sold out, that the moon cycle started in three days, that I needed to re-stock the ETSY store shelves or the money flow would stop and everything would stop.

“I think Cliff has some,” said Susan, “And I have to go out to his farm today.  Do you want to go with?”

I knew Cliff.  He had grown for the Sisters when we ran our cannabis co-op years ago.  I knew he grew organic, but I also knew that he never kept track of his strains, he never cured properly, and he always pulled his crops too soon.  I also knew he was a bit crazy.   Cliff earned his crazy, though, having lost a brother and mother to a home fire, and his dad a few months later to sheer heart-ache.  That was five or six years ago and Cliff has lived as a hermit ever since.  Eschewing people for dogs, and goats.  Trauma changes people.  Cliff’s crazy isn’t really crazy to me.  Pets are healers, and he is just self healing.

Susan agreed to pick me up at noon, and we drove to the bank.  Knowing that we didn’t know what he had, or what he would charge for it, I explained to Sister Susan, “I’m taking out a thousand dollars and I’ll see what it gets us.”

I knew Cliff never went out, never had visitors, didn’t read the local papers, nor pay much attention to news, so I exchanged my habit for lay-clothes.  I was quite sure he didn’t know I had become a nun.

It was 105 degrees out when Susan and I were rolling up on the dusty road in front of his property.  We sat out there with the car idling, basking in the cold air pumping from the vents, while Susan called him to let him know we had arrived.  “There’s no entrance gate to his property,” Susan explained, as she hung up.  “He took it out recently; he said if there is no entrance, any police coming on his property are actually doing breaking and entry.”  I smiled a weary smile.  I knew this would be an adventure.

Cliff arrived in a souped up golf cart.  He had a battery powered hand drill to remove screws from the metal fencing, and I waited and watched from the car, as he also had to untie numerous pieces of twine that were holding bits and pieces of the fence in place.  Reluctantly, we shut off the engine and got out into the hot sun.

“You cut your hair,” he said – his very first words to me.  I think I must have given him a confused look because his next words were, “What happened to your braids?  When I saw you last they hung on your shoulders and I liked them.”

“Hello, Cliff,” I said, smiling and stepping into a stiff hug.  As we stepped through the open section of fence, he got busy re-drilling the metal sheets in place, re-tying the metal bars.  “Get in the cart, Ladies.”

We drove the cart about fifteen feet when he stopped the engine, jumped out, and using keys for multiple locks, opened another gate, drove through.  Stopped, jumped out and re-locked it.  Once through that, we rode across several acres of dusty, sandy, barren land, passing dilapidated structures, the stumps of harvested cannabis plants, and his herd of goats, lying under a canopy that was the nicest structure in view.

He pulled the golf cart onto a little path that led through an open gate at the front of his house.  We walked through an enclosed garden that held approximately twenty mature, un-harvested cannabis plants.  We walked through his house, where the air conditioning felt heavenly, but the noise from the seven yappie dogs unbearable.  Susan took a seat on a recliner, announced that she would wait for us there, and we continued through the kitchen door, out to the back side of the house.  We then walked across a half acre of more flat, dry land to a place where eight mature cannabis plants stood alone waving slightly in the hot wind.

“This is my CBD crop.” He said, pointing to the plants that towered above me in the hot sun.  I shaded my eyes to look up, to assess their height.  I inspected the bud.  “What kind?” I asked. 

“I’m not sure any more.” Cliff answered.  And I smiled, because I was quite sure he wouldn’t know.  I’m quite sure the reason he doesn’t keep track of his strains is because he cannot read or write.  He was raised on that farm.  Even though he is now near sixty, he and his brother and mother and father lived there, and ran the scrap metal business together for nearly forty years.  Then one summer, they all crossed over and left Cliff to care for the dogs – and the goats, and the environmental clean-up of the property.

“This woman brought me seeds she bought from either a dispensary or a seed bank.  They were all labeled and stuff, but I didn’t keep ‘em.  She had cancer, and asked me to grow her CBD.  I was just about to harvest it, and she died.”

“Oh, Cliff, I’m so sorry.” I said.  Just recently, I had a cancer patient reach out to me from Oregon and I played telephone tag with his care-giver for a week, at the end of which, I was notified that the patient died. 

“Oh, I didn’t know her very well,” he explained.  “A friend of a friend, kind of thing.  I don’t even remember her name.  Flo, I think.  Yeah, I think it was that.” 

The patron saint of Sisters of the Valley is Florence Nightingale.  My Grandmother’s name was Florence. I smiled again.  I appreciate synchronicity, even standing under what was by then, a 107 degree mid-day sun.

It appeared to me that the eight plants were from eight different strains.  “Do you remember any of the strain names, Cliff?” I asked, hopefully.

“Cannatonic.” He said.  “That’s the only one I remember.  But she said they were all high CBD.  It’s why I kept them far away from my other plants.  See?  They have their own acre.  I needed to make sure I didn’t mix them up.”  It was quiet for a moment as I wondered how many more weeks before they were ready to harvest.  As if he read my thoughts, Cliff said, “If you take them right now, you can have them.” 

“What?” I asked, totally puzzled.  “They aren’t ready!” 

“Their past ready.” He said.  “I’ve already harvest twenty big-uns, out front!  Didn’t you see when we were driving past the goats?”

“I saw.” I said, and refrained from having a discussion with him that I knew would go no-where.  It was September seventeenth.  No one harvested outdoor this early.  No one did – by choice, anyway. 

“I started a new business.” I began to explain, but he waived me away saying, “I know, I know, you use it to make salves and stuff. You can have it, but you gotta take it now before I shoot someone.  I’m getting my whole crop in because the east avenue gang of tweekers is coming for it.  I’ma cutting this today one way or t’nother.  I was gonna just feed it to my goats, but then Susan called . . .”

“Don’t feed this to the goats!” I said, shocked.  “America is currently sold out of bulk CBD!  People are pre-ordering for Fall harvests!  I would have to ship it in from Europe right now!”

“Well, I tried to give it to the cancer society, but they wanted my social security number, so I had to just hang up the phone.”  I smiled.  This from the man who has a wall-sized American flag hanging in his living room.  He loves his country.  He hates his country.

“Well, Lady, you can have it all, if you want it.”

“Hell, yes, we want it!  Of course we want it.  But, Cliff, this will not all fit in my little Ford.  Let me go get a van, let me call my son . . . “ I pleaded.  It was now past one o’clock and the day was getting hotter.  His whole property was dry dirty-white sand, spotted with tumble weed and cannabis root stalks.

“Don’t you worry about your car.  I’ll make it fit.  Worry about the goats.” He warned, as he started cutting at the base of the tallest of the eight plants.  I put out my arms as forty pounds or more of a cannabis tree was handed to me.  I swear it made me sink two inches down into the sand.  I had sandals on.  I had a linen skirt and blouse and a straw hat and lipstick and mascara and I was about to carry eight huge plants across a half acre of sand, one at a time, and that was just the first part of a multi-part journey to the car.

While I trudged across the sand, I was mentally shaking my head in disbelief.  “Really?  Really, my angels and Guardians?  This is what you want me to do to get CBD?”  But then my other Gemini twin said, “You ungrateful brat!  You just scored ten pounds minimum of CBD bud and ten pounds minimum of CBD leaf and it was donated and you have it for your moon cycle batch!  And you are complaining about the form of delivery?  Suck it up, girl!”  I stood and wiped my brow after dropping the first load.   “You can do this, Kate.” I told myself.

I started to think of Flo, in heaven, watching us and smiling with pride that she managed to get her medicine into good hands.  Cliff and I toiled wordlessly for the next hour, sweat pouring into our eyes, stopping only once to get some water.  When we were done, we had a huge pile by the back door of his house.

“Now you go in and set for a bit,” he said, “While I load up the golf cart.”

“Hey, Cliff, would the goats leave us alone if we give them an offering?  You know, give them each a stalk?” I asked seriously, but Cliff chuckled.  “Not my goats.  They want it all and they know they can have it all.  Nope, we’ll just have to take the long way around the property.  I will get their food out, and that might distract ‘em . . . “  He looked worried.  All I needed was an attack of the goat herd.  I had seen the damage goats could do.

Uitendelijk (finally), Susan and I drove fifteen miles back to the abbey with eight foot cannabis trees hanging out the trunk of the Ford Focus.  He had no plastic bags, no blankets or tarps, and he kept insisting it was all good and that no one would bother us.  When we pulled into the driveway, Susan and I, feeling relieved and victorious, my son came out, took one look at the car, and he was the first to begin scolding us.

“Are you crazy, Mom?  Have you totally lost your marbles?”  He was all puffed up and angry-looking.  Susan and I both had stupid grins on our faces and that just made him madder.  “Who does this?” he asked rhetorically, waving to the tail of the car.  Behind him came Italia.  “What in the f*** are you doing?” he said, rubbing his eyes, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“It’s CBD.” I announced, “And really, Italia, I would have done it any other way, if I could, but the guy who donated the crop, well, he’s kind of a hermit, and he is dealing with some gang of bandits, and we had no choice but to take it right now.”

“You couldn’t get the van?  Why didn’t you take the van?  Why didn’t you call me?”

“He wouldn’t let me.  I didn’t take the van because I thought it was a business meeting.  Look at me!” I said, lifting my skirts to show him my scratched and dirty feet, my ruined sandals. 

“Don’t stand there talking,” Italia said, “We have to get this into the garage.” 

Later that night, Chico gave me a bunch of words on how my little stunt put the whole house and family at risk of gangsters robbing us.  How driving home with cannabis hanging out of your trunk is the same as announcing that there is cannabis in my home, come rob me. 

“It’s CBD.” I said, knowing that just because it’s non-psychotropic, just because there is no local black market for these strains, doesn’t mean the crooks know that.  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them, because Chico hollered “THEY DON’T KNOW THAT, you foolish woman!”

I argued that if they grew my CBD properly, like they did the THC plants, I wouldn’t be in this pickle, but Chico was too clever to accept that argument.  He pointed out to everyone listening that even if their CBD crop had succeeded, the sisters would be out of leaf and bud for this moon cycle, anyway, due to the fact that it wasn’t yet time to harvest.

“You shouldn’t yell at me.” I told Chico.  “I have magical powers.  Look what I did?  I manifested CBD!  Yesterday I had no CBD and today I have racks of it!”  Chico was scowling, so with that, I said my good-nights and scooted off to bed. 

Back in another era of my life, I consulted for newly-deregulated businesses.  Energy, Telecom, Cable.  I learned back then that working in a newly-deregulated business is much like a ride on a bull.  You have to hang on tight.  You have to be determined.  You have to be able to roll with the punches.  If you get thrown, you have to get right back on.  Hours and days of hard work, interspersed with moments of fun and moments of pure terror.

“This is the first batch that I have ever made that I am afraid of.” I commented to Sister Darcy one night prior to beginning the batch.  “We must pray to rid the fear.” I said.

“Why are you afraid, Sister?” 

“The stakes are higher.” I said, simply.  “There is much to lose.  We have stepped onto the world stage.  We are being watched.  People from all over the world are re-ordering and relying on our medicines to manage pain, to help reverse cancer, to reduce seizures.  Our mistakes will have public consequences.”

I didn’t tell young Sister Darcy what I was really worried about.  I didn’t tell her my fear that the lab results would come back upside down, that the CBD to THC ratios would be wrong, that the batch we just invested over a thousand dollars of high quality ingredients to make, might not cut the mustard for shipping out of state, and then the value of the batch reduces by fifty percent, and the store gets neglected, as we turn our energies to the California dispensaries to distribute . . . I didn’t connect all those dots for her.  I didn’t explain that if the worst happens, it would have been better for the goats to eat the CBD.

“If the universe wanted the goats to get the CBD,” she said as she hugged me, “It wouldn’t have delivered it to us, Sister.”  I didn’t believe her, but her hugs are sweet and all I really needed to banish the nagging fear.  It will be what it will be.  And if we get thrown off the bull, we will just have to brush ourselves off and get back on.

First in Cannabis Kate Series:  Central Valley Cannabis Operations

Second in Cannabis Kate Series:  Back Then (Living Under Cannabis Prohibition)

Third in Cannabis Kate Series:  So Kate, What Is Your Experience with Growing?

Fourth in Cannabis Kate Series:  Central Valley Cannabis Landscape:  A Tribute to the Activists

Fifth in Cannabis Kate Series:  Throw Away People

Sixth in Cannabis Kate Series:  We Have a Win

Seventh in Cannabis Kate Series:  Holy Trinity of the Clitorii

Eighth in Cannabis Kate Series:  If You Build It, They Will Come

Ninth in Cannabis Kate Series:  Be Like Florence Nightingale

Tenth in Cannabis Kate Series:  CBD - Not Just for Goats (Part I)