Sister Mary Batshit Crazy

While I was living in Amsterdam, I wrote a book called ‘Thigh Freedom’, and what I remember from that is that my heroine of the story smoked a joint and the publishers made me write that out.  That was only fifteen years ago.  Now I fend calls with offers for movies, films, documentaries, animated series, on the very subject.  Now foreign governments ask us to come speak at their conferences on the subject, mainstream media asks us to smoke a joint for their cameras before they leave.  The Chamber of Commerce visits the farm and they all take selfies with the plants.  How much the world has changed!

‘Thigh Freedom’ (by the way) is a modern-day story where the heroine is trapped in a miserable marriage (I had to do something with all that divorce angst) and she reads a novel about her ancestral heritage and learns that pre-Christianity, according to Celtic lore, the month of May is the month where all married women get to exercise their ‘thigh freedom’ and cavort with other men – only married women with other married men (so as not to upset whatever was going on with the young courting folks). 

It was custom and culture and if babies sprung from such unions, they were raised by the woman’s family, along with the other children, without a thought to genetic origins.  The idea captured my imagination (just for being so radical), and I wrote a modern-day story where the heroin decides that every tenth year of marriage, for the whole year, would be her thigh freedom year.  It seemed more practical.  More adapted to current times.  And she embarks on a journey which ultimately lands her back with her husband, living happily ever after.

In my own divorce situation, there was no happily-ever-after, so I poured my energies into that book as a form of therapy.  When the interested publishers told me that I had to take all references to weed out of the story, I lost my ‘zin’ for publishing it and it has sat on a shelf, since.

Xaviera Hollander, a friend from Europe, loved the book and encouraged me to get it published, but I didn’t have time.  I was distracted by a raging custody battle and the re-settlement of my children in America after nearly a decade in the Netherlands.  

Eighteen months after returning to America, I found myself poor and frightened in a strange city, as I chose poverty and escape from Kentucky over staying trapped in a state that was presented to me as a temporary landing place.  My ex- talked me into moving to Kentucky from Europe (good God!), by convincing me that we would only live there temporarily.  But when I got to Kentucky, he informed me that I am penniless, he seized all my business funds, I should go ahead and divorce him, he said, because he had all the money and had decided to make his retirement permanent (with three children in middle school), and decided I could support us on my own.  He knew I would file for divorce -- he stole over a million dollars from my business, a business I founded and worked in, while he stayed at home and played house-husband with a housekeeper, cook, a gardener and a driver.    

In the end, he wanted the divorce to happen in Kentucky where the courts favor their Kentucky boys.  I call Northern Kentucky ‘the penis fly trap’ for the way the men of that place trap Yankee women.

This was only one of two very dark and frightening periods of my life.  It was in this period, that Xaviera called and offered me an advance for ghost-writing a book for her.  It was a sex tip book for men, using the best of the best quotes from her 32 years publishing her ‘Call Me Madame’ column in Penthouse magazine.  Her tips for men are wrapped up in the philosophy that women have three clits:  a brain clit, a heart clit, and a body clit.  The heart clit has to be made to feel safe, the brain clit has to be made to feel ‘unsafe’ or challenged, and the body clit will follow.  That’s the nutshell of the wrappings, but there were great quotes from modern-day celebrities on the subject of sex and love.  My personal favorite is Sharon Stone’s:  Women may be able to fake orgasm, but men can fake whole relationships.  Boom!

Just this fall, I published my own story, the Accidental Nun.   A two-year project that took four years to come to fruition.  The sex-tip book with Xaviera was purely for the money.  The ‘Thigh Freedom’ book was purely for the therapy.   The Accidental Nun was an attempt to de-mystify my journey.  Two of those books made it to market.

Like many other people, I have wounds I carry and try to heal.  I have been betrayed twice by men I completely trusted, an ex-husband who stole from me, abused me, and then by a brother who pretended to rescue me, but made me homeless in a fit of temper and then stuck with it.  All of that formed me, however, and gave me the courage to set out and create a Beguine Sisterhood. 

Although I am living a life of celibate devotion, I still love men.  I wouldn’t want to build anything without them.  I wouldn’t want to live without them in my life.  We have Brothers here now who take their jobs with us seriously.  They are grounded, respectful, protective.

 

I see the actions of my ex-husband and my brother a sickness in our society, where men beat their chests and make women and children homeless over pride.  All over a false sense of pride.  I want our children to have it a little better.  I want a world of less suffering.  And I certainly don’t believe that men have cornered the market on bad behavior.

On the farm now, after much turmoil, peace and serenity have finally arrived.  I didn’t realize when I set out on this journey five short years ago, that a large part of my job would be sorting out the bat-shit crazy from the regular-every-day crazy in order to keep us marching forward, harmoniously and peaceably.

Our first two farm managers had severe drug problems that were well-hidden from us.  I call them Brother Tweeker 1 and Brother Tweeker 2.   It works like this, I hired them when they had both been poor for a long time and, thus, were clean.  And they were fine for two to three months.  As soon as financial stability came, however, they began indulging in hard drugs (not together, these were consecutive hires).  One we called out as soon as raging became a part of his normal activities with the sisters.  It appears he raged when he ran out.  And he wasn’t particular about who or what he raged about. 

The man who replaced him, Brother Tweeker 2, had the same thing going on, minus the rage.  First two to three months – just fine.  Then financial stability comes from working and then come the hard drugs.  He didn’t rage -- he just started doing bizarre things like showing up on the farm on a Sunday afternoon and putting a lasagna in our oven (!) when it was 105 degrees outside – without a word to anyone, with just a nod, like it was normal and expected.  They weren’t crazy. They were addicts.

The bat-shit crazy came from the wanna-be sisters who came through here.  Over the first two years, I had to dismiss many Sister Mary’s.  Sister Mary Natzi Vegan, Sister Mary Full-On Wiccan, Sister Mary Got-Any-Oxy?, Sister Mary – May I Sleep with Your Son? Sister Mary Polyamorous, Sister Mary Platitude, Sister Mary can’t wake up and Sister Mary can’t shut up. Of all of them, the last was probably the most intolerable to me.

As we stand at the precipice of launching our second sister farm, I can’t help but wonder how the other sisters who will be managing the crazy they must juggle -- their own and others.  These are very crazy times and the energies of the planet reflect that.  Yet, it is vital to the growth of the sisterhood that we manage the people well.  That we select the right people.  We cannot be sidelined by individuals, when we have a global calling.  We will be criticized for our focus.  So, what?  Some will say, why didn’t you help rehabilitate those addicts?  Why didn’t you put medicine on those women?  The answers to that are easy for me.  Firstly, they didn’t ask.  Secondly, we do not exist to conform to the individual needs of the enclave.  We have a higher calling.  And we can’t be distracted by anyone other than our own people, when and if they need us. 

We spend all day, every day, getting the word out about CBD, taking calls from sick people, helping them figure out their path with the natural medicine.  We need strong people around us to help us fulfill the mission.  We are all broken a little, and we all need a healing place to live and work.  We require a healing place to work.  But that doesn’t mean we are Lourdes.  We don’t do miracles.  We are ordinary women who are on a serious mission.

Speaking of Lourdes, this past summer I had the opportunity to impersonate my own sister.  It was a hot August Saturday.  We try not to work on weekends, as we consider that a form of slavery.  It happens, sometimes, but it’s not our normal.  Our normal is the farm is very quiet on the weekends.  This Saturday, the doorbell rang to the abbey.  I was in shorts and a wife-beater t-shirt.  I quickly put a scarf on my head (as if that made up for the rest of me showing) and answered the door.  I saw a big tour bus parked outside and people with walkers and canes getting out. 

The bus driver apologized and told me his tour wanted very much to stop here to meet the sisters and he complied.  I had no idea how they got our address, so I was stunned at first. 

“The Sisters aren’t here today,” I said in wonder, trying to figure out how many people were on that bus. 

“Where are they?” an elderly Asian woman asked. 

“I don’t know.” I said, extending my hand to the bus-driver, to the old Asian woman who was, apparently, the ring-leader.  “I am Sister Kate’s sister, Shari, visiting from Wisconsin and I don’t know.  I think they went into the city to run errands.”

The woman had to adjust her cane a bit to extend her hand.  “Very nice to meet you, Shari, but we really wanted to see the Sisters.”

“I’m sorry, they aren’t here.” I said again.  The woman was very aggressive and persistent, making me repeat over and over again, that the Sisters weren’t on the farm – that no sisters were on the farm, and that I didn’t know where they were.  When she asked the fifth time, I said in exasperation, “I really have no idea what those bitches do on the weekends, I’m just watching the dogs for them!”  She finally admitted defeat.  I guess that was just un-nunly enough to do the trick.

I gave them the office number, asked them to please schedule their visit and sent them away with a tin of salve each, so they weren’t too terribly disappointed.  My sisters and brothers who are right now starting or figuring out how to start their own sister-farm, are you ready for this?

Be Like Florence Nightingale

Never let other peoples’ voices or opinions take priority over the voice of your own intuition.  And always be leery of advice from family. 

If Florence Nightingale would have listened to her family, hospital reform would have happened a hundred years later than it did.  I am convinced that hundreds of thousands of soldiers would have died in hospitals over the course of a century, if Florence Nightingale hadn’t taken up her activism, from her bedroom, where she spent most of her life.  She was permanently grounded, because her parents thought it was unfitting for a Lady to be working.  She worked anyway and she even worked for the US government, who sought her counsel when establishing civil war hospitals.  All from her bedroom.  Because her folks wouldn’t let her go out to work.  Long before internet.  Long before telephones.

As a young woman, she convinced her family to let her volunteer at a hospital in the Crimea.  She only served six months -- but she was a numbers girl (like me) and she figured out quickly that more men died in the hospital, than in battle.  The hospital was built over open sewers.  The hospital staff didn’t have procedures for cleaning tools; infections spread.  The food fed the patients didn’t take into account their illness.  Some died from malnutrition or complications from aggravating the stomach lining.  

She went home to England after her assignment was over, and pleaded with her parents to allow her to go to nursing school.  They refused.  So she retired to her bedroom and for the next fifty years, she reformed hospitals.

She started a letter writing campaign, activist that she was.  She requested statistics and stories from nurses and patients from hospitals all over the world.  And the hospital workers and soldiers responded.   She was particularly focused on soldiers and became an icon of support for those boots on the ground.  She is my heroin.  She is the patron saint of the Sisters of the Valley.  

Long before I was an activist/anarchist nun, I ran a pretty successful little consulting company.  I specialized in launching ka-ching machines in telecom, cable, internet, and energy sectors.

Ten years ago, over a million dollars disappeared from my consulting business.  All of the money the company had.  All of the money I had.  All the money earned and saved by me since starting the business. 

Nine years ago, I came across a locked and hidden business filing cabinet that contained the evidence. 

Eight years ago, seven years ago, and six years ago, I spent three months per year dedicated to the task of piecing together the clues from that filing cabinet, to paint a picture of how and when the funds went missing. 

Five years ago, I took my mounds of evidence to one of the best forensic accounting firms in the world, and begged and pleaded with them to take my case, even though it was a forty-thousand dollar plus project, and I could only pay them one hundred dollars per month for their help.

What’s family got to do with it?  If I had listened to my family, I would have never gone down that path.  If I listened to my family, I would have believed that my search for justice would end in grave disappointment.  “The money’s gone!” they would say.  “Just forget it.”  They would say.  “Possession is nine tenths of the law,” they would say.  “You will never see it.” They would say. “You’re just aggravating your soul . . . let it go, move on.” (They would say.)  It made me sad.  It made me feel misunderstood.  And most especially, it made me determined to prove them wrong. 

Three years ago, the IRS investigated the thief and charged him with a felony for ‘structuring transactions’.  He was really moving money all around the world, to keep me from finding it.  I had both my attorney (bless her soul) and the forensic accounting firm demanding statements and more statements from him.  Every time he had to disclose, he would move the funds again.  He moved over two hundred thousand dollars into North America, from South America, in amounts of $9,999 every month until it was all over.  He knew the ten thousand dollar limit would trigger a report to the IRS; he wasn’t very bright about how he did his thievery.  He negotiated his way out of going to prison by paying the IRS that whole bucket of my money.

One year ago, with him sitting at his attorney’s office in Kentucky, and me in mine, he agreed to give me a check for one hundred seventy thousand dollars, and the required wording to notify the IRS “Hey, you know that money I paid to get out of jail free?  It wasn’t my money to pay.  It’s Kate’s.”

It’s important to note that I took on a lot of debt to fund this battle.  I had three kids in middle school and in order to help my brother save his house, I moved to one of the most economically destitute corners of the world.  From that first round, last summer, I got my attorney and the forensic accounting firm paid in full, my mother paid back, and eighty percent of my other debt cleared.  I also got to buy a new car for the Abbey and it afforded me the luxury of launching the tea and tincture business – in style.

One half year ago, my attorney filed a request to get the money back from the IRS.  And one week ago, I received those funds.  (Hell, yes, I did a jig!  My victory jig lasted days!)

When I notified our attorney in town, he said, “Good God, Kate, I’ve never heard of anyone wrestling that big of a chunk of money out of the hands of the IRS, so quickly!  I think I am in love!”

“You should be!” I told him.  “I rock!”

The victory was all that much the sweeter, for the nay-sayers, actually.  It was all the sweeter because no one believed I could make this happen.  But I was determined.  “Pitbull with lipstick” determined.  There were many times during the ten years that I was frustrated to tears . . .  especially when he would make counter-offensive attacks.  He attacked me for full custody, demanding from the Kentucky courts that I return the children to him, from California, within five days.  I remember I didn’t sleep and lost ten pounds over the two weeks following that.  I remember that he had the court order land on me ten days before Christmas.  It was its own horror show.

In the past year, he launched another counter-offensive, trying to ‘take me to court’ for my frivolous demands for copies of his bank statements.  (My attorney batted that away with no effort whatsoever.)  During the ten years, I lost count of how many different attorniess he has had representing him.  I lost count at six.  I still have my original.

A little sage advice to anyone who knows they are going to be divorced (marriage or business) and knows their partner is hiding money:  demand a ‘finder’s keepers clause’ in the final agreement.  Make sure it says that any money that you find (that the other party didn’t disclose at the time of the split), you get one hundred percent.  That was the basis of my whole battle.  That was the wording in the Agreement that kept the court doors open and ensured he had to respond when my attorney requested banking information.

Last summer, my attorney convinced me to ‘bifurcate’ the issues, or more accurately, ‘tri-furcate’, because there were three doors to walk through, at this final stage of the decade-long chase to find my business funds.  Door number one was last summer and those funds got me out of debt, got the new business launched, and got me a car that doesn’t break down monthly.  It made my life immensely better.  I love the Sisters of the Valley business, the plant growing and medicine making, the holistic, organic and earth-loving life, the reach of the internet to sell internationally. 

Door number two is the money just received from the IRS.  It will give the Sisters of the Valley a home.  All the work for Sisters of the Valley has thus far been done in an overcrowded, rented, little house by the railroad tracks in a city best known for being a permanent occupant at the top of Forbes “most miserable cities in America” list.    The Sisters experience hardship in the cloister department, with growers, recovering addicts, and short-time college students co-habituating in our living space.  It’s really hard to keep sacred focus with rap music blaring from somewhere in the house, and mariachi  music blaring from a nearby neighbor.

This is all to say that the money from the IRS was turned over last Friday, and by Sunday, we had put an offer on a farm.  It has two homes and four barns.  It has a brother-house and a sister-house.  It has a guy place and a girl place!  It has canal water on two borders, and it has its own well. 

Yes, instead of calling each and every one of the nay-sayers to say ‘nah nah nah-nah-nah, I was right and you were wrong’, I just went to work getting that farm we need.  I was a good girl (this time).

My personal credit is in the toilet after this decade long of being poverty level, food-stamp level, dirt-poor.  However, I survived and my kids are fine.  My oldest son is about to graduate from UC Davis, in December, as a mechanical engineer.  My youngest daughter is about to start her sophomore year at UCLA, and my middle son, with about two years of college behind him, and with his meth addiction behind him (knock on wood), is seriously considering just devoting his time to the farm and the business of farming for the Sisters.  I think it fits awesomely in with the Sisterhood plans, because if we can create a healing place for him to work, then maybe we are on our way to making such a place for other recovering addicts and PTSD vets and their families.

The sellers accepted our offer, but it’s a short sale.  So two banks are going to have to approve the sale price and we offered a price substantially below asking price.   And my own bank is questioning my ability to qualify, since the Sisters of the Valley has only been providing wages since January.  Maybe the whole amount will go to the farm and we will be back to being poor farmers, but we’ll be on our own farm!!! 

I am anxious to have a place to spread out in.  I am anxious to have some separation between female energies and male energies.  Somehow, I feel that’s necessary for our medicines. (If the residents or visitors need to comingle, there are barns.)

I am anxious to have a vegetable garden and flowerbeds of dandelions.  Dandelions are the antidote to Monsanto, I do believe.  And we have to bring them back from the brink of extinction, because they are powerfully curative.

Everything is falling into place.  When you feel you have a calling, when you know in your heart that you have to do what you are doing, no matter how many people point you in the other direction, continue your march.  Listen to your heart.  Determination is everything.  None of this happened when I wanted it to happen – it all took too bloody long.  But I am winning.  And I still have Door number three to walk through.  Sometimes justice needs a little earth-place assistance.  Sometimes people just open their mouths and talk, without giving thought to your needs.  There were many times I needed encouragement, and I remember fondly those of my friends who did believe in me.  I remember.  I cherish.  Take whatever encouragement you can get, dismiss the nay-sayers, and whatever you do, don’t give up.

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

So, Kate, what IS your experience with growing Cannabis?

Driving cross country from Atlanta to the central valley of California, back in the summer of 2008, my brother was already trying to convince me to get into the Cannabis business with him.  We were secretly carting my kids off to California to keep them away from their felon father.  We were traveling in my Dodge caravan with the three children and a golden retriever (Buddy). 

We had over two hundred dollars in fireworks that were legal in Mississippi, but not California, and over an ounce of weed on us.  We expected state troopers at every border, and when we’d cross, we’d do a group sigh of relief that we were clear -- a sigh of relief that it was happening.  Distance between my kids and their father, whose rails had clearly gone off the track.  Distance between my children and his family, who were encouraging his brand of crazy.  Distance behind us and a volatile two years of divorce and custody battles.  The children were excited.  They are adventurers, all three.  But we didn’t know there were two California’s.   We didn’t know we were carrying our liberal democrat souls into the Iowa of California.  And it was the year of the housing market crash.  We didn’t know how we were going to support the combined families.  My brothers’ small electronics business wasn’t going to do it.

“C’mon, Sis,” said Joe.  “You don’t want to go back to consulting anyway, you are tired of traveling all the time, you want to be with your kids.  The laws on cannabis are changing.”   Joe talked for a long time -- as soon as the kids were asleep, and as I recall, all the way through Arizona.   

Just after he finished explaining about the central valley sandy, loamy soil, I asked, “So what is the most amount of weed you’ve ever grown at one time?” His answer made me roll my eyes.  One plant.  One pound per year.  I laughed.  “You’re crazy.” I told him.  “You don’t know jack shit about growing weed and you want me to found a – what do you call them?  A collective?”

“I can do more!” he said, “The first thing we do is get our cannabis cards.”

He had to do a whole lot more talking, because I wasn’t even aware there was such a thing.  But it all sounded like alcohol prohibition, how people got ‘prescriptions’ for their alcohol and it was procured through the doctors and pharmacists.  And since my background was de-regulating businesses, telecom, cable, energy, it sounded like it could be interesting.

We had our hands full settling the kids, but over the next year, I did my research and became familiar with the steps.  Because I was still in litigation for custody of my three minors, I was adamant about doing everything by the book.  (Kentucky would take my kids away from me for doing this.) 

My brother’s boys had very bad California central valley educations, and like many of the youth here, were doing nothing but gaming and getting stoned all day.  I got them both back in school and convinced the anarchist son to study agriculture, so we would have somebody on the premise who knew something about growing.  I got commitments from all of them to an ‘open electronics’ household, where no devices would be password protected and that I had the right to look into all of them.  I knew that as soon as word was out that we had cannabis, my boys’ high school friends would come knocking.  I made them all commit to no black market sales – ever.  No ‘off the book’ sales – ever.  I made my brother start declaring his cash sales at his business for the first time in thirty years, because, as I explained to him, “If I let you leak cash through your business without reporting it, and I am doing the books for both businesses, then the IRS would assume that I was also letting cash leak through the cannabis business.”  He didn’t like it, but I did his books and I didn’t let a dollar slip out unreported.

We grew an eighteen pound crop our first year, a thirty pound crop our second year, and in our third year, it all fell to hell over envy and greed.  As I recall, the little family delivery service we founded did around forty-five thousand the first year, seventy-five thousand the second year, and in the third year, it dropped down to first year numbers as a secret revolt was taking place in-house.  The growers (my brother and his boys) weren’t getting wealthy fast enough, so they began to feed the black market, behind my back.  The crops got bigger, the income got smaller.  I had to bail.  I loved my brother, but not enough to go to jail for him.

Most of the money earned in those years of operating ‘Caregrowers’ went to the family.  We had a business that relied on doctors referring patients to us, and which netted us mostly terminal patients.  We made house-calls.  And we did much more than deliver Cannabis.  We would run errands for those house-bound patients on our way to deliver the medicine – we would bring groceries, cigarettes - even, bring Thanksgiving dinner.  For the six children in our home, ages thirteen to twenty-two, it was an exercise in service.  For awhile, it worked; it was noble.  We were envied our team spirit and our ability to pass the baton back and forth.

Back in those days, no one asked about the CBD to THC ratio.  All anyone ever wanted to know was ‘Indica’ or ‘Sativa’?   After we got robbed at gun-point, we got dogs.  We named the two German Shepherds by those names, but called them ‘Indy’ and ‘Sadie’ for short.  Sometime, I will tell the story of the robbery.

Even though it was quite upsetting at the time, the crumbling of the family operation was (for me) a good thing.  Over those years of harvesting, curing, and making tea and tinctures, I came to love the medicine and the business.  And I worked with other growers, during that time, and I came to suspect anything they’d say.  I learned that many think they can grow good cannabis, but few truly can.  Many boast about the size of their kola’s (which sounds an awful lot like men bragging about the size of their dicks), and I became immune to their shit-talk.  My own brother and his boys did an adequate job, but as it turned out, they were amateurs, too.

When the Universe gave me a chance to strike out on my own, I knew, by that time, that if I wanted to find the guys who are the experts, I needed to find the ones who had been doing it for more than two decades.  And I knew in my heart, that if the Universe brought me a real expert, he would probably have a criminal record.  By the time I got around to launching the Sisters of the Valley cannabis tea and tincture business, I didn’t care.  I would deal with the cultural clashes that presents, just, Lord, please bring me someone who can competently handle my crops.  Bring me grown-ups who take security as seriously as the medicine, who mitigate my risk of loss. 

My brother and his boys regularly did ridiculous things – cost us five hundred dollars in an attempt to save five.  We lost two sets of seedlings from Attitude Seedbank, worth $500 – and that was a lot of money to us – because my brother (who likes to decide these things for himself), decided to save on electricity by removing the shell of the gaming computers and setting the plants on the floor next to them, using heat and lights from the unit. It was winter.  The floors were cold.  When I learned that not a single one of the seeds sprouted, I made them develop a proper cloning closet with proper lights, heat and ventilation . . . and I spent another two hundred fifty dollars on seeds, so they could try again.  You get the picture.  For those three years of running the collective together, the reason I got my education on ‘other growers’, is because of how my brother grew (and often -- didn’t grow) his weed.

When I finally came upon an excellent grow team, I could look back and say, “I now know the difference between a good grower and a bad one.”

A good grower takes security as seriously as -- with as much weight and gravitas as – all other parts of growing.  A bad grower wants to show everyone his budding crop, but a good grower gets mad at you if you even suggest it.  A good grower spares no expense for these plants.  A bad grower tries to find short-cuts and cheats.  A good grower checks them daily, sits with them, talks to them, encourages them, and treats them like the royal ladies they are.  A bad grower throws his tools around and has temper tantrums in the garden, allowing contempt to flow over the ladies and makes them cringe and stunts their growth.

Good growers won’t let round-up or any Monsanto products anywhere near the Ladies.  Bad growers are lazy and often choose that dark path.  Good growers aren’t afraid of lab tests, bad growers are.  Good growers know their strains and if, for example, a certain activist nun happens to mix two strains in a bag, the good growers can separate the weed back out by sight.  In short order.  With no fuss.  (Ok, they fussed a little.)

When I closed Caregrowers, I turned the membership over to a group of people that wanted to take the baton (Jack’s Greenhouse) and today, that collective is one of our best clients for salves and tinctures.

I lost a grow season to trusting the shit-talk of a few more growers who didn’t know what they were doing, but by the Spring of 2014, I hit the jack-pot -- the Universe sent me ‘good’ growers.  It turns out that if you want a good grower, you can’t be insisting on a good citizen.  And that made cultural challenges of our first harvest season unbelievably huge.

My house became the Green Acres of the cannabis business, where passionate and sometimes comical debates took place over the handling of the plants, the law, and the business.  Imagine a six foot something, two-hundred pound Mexican man telling me, “I am the boss, here.” And all five foot two inches of me stretching to my tallest to say “That very well may be, but that doesn’t mean we won’t do it my way.” Imagine, then, his pause, as he wonders if I am agreeing or not.  Spanish is his first language and stubbornness is mine. 

Stay tuned.  My next will discuss those cultural clashes as the new grow team and I got accustomed to one another.

Central Valley Cannabis Operations

My Name is Sister Kate.  I am an accidental nun, and that story will be told in time.  I have been directed by my own higher powers to begin writing, regularly, about the adventure I am on.  I have been told to reveal the story as it unfolds, because, it is in the better good of the people to know what’s happening, as it happens . . . and because, it is for the better good of the Sisters of the Valley to take people along with us on the ride.  “Your readers will help and inspire you.”  (Desiree, my earth angel)

After harvesting a bountiful cannabis crop last fall, we were in the position to launch our line.  For the first six months of this year, we played.  We made teas and tinctures and medicines and sold them locally, and gave away a lot of product for people to try.  In our play, we figured out what seriously worked for folks and suddenly, we had people requesting our cannabis medicines from far corners of the world.  People were offering amazing testimonials on the healing powers of our products.

We make our medicines by moon cycles and, as best we can figure, in accordance with ancient First Nation rituals.  We sew prayer and healing into each jar and each bottle.  We put the batches up under a new moon and bottle under a full moon.  Women only make the medicines.  It is a solemn ritual.  As new age nuns, these are our periods of celibacy – the medicine-making moon cycles.

We have all our products certified organic and labeled with potency information from SC Labs in Santa Cruz.  Sometimes our product potency does not match up with the testimonials we are getting.  The miracle cure stories, the re-orders, the buzz, is more than what the potency label shows. 

“My potency for CBD looks weak compared to others,” (I complained to the lab technician), “And yet, I am hearing it cures, or contributes greatly to the cure of a great many things.”

 

“It could be working so well because of your combination of CBD, CBN and THC.” Offers the lab technician.

“But your labels!  People are going to think we have weak medicine!” I object.  “Shouldn’t we retest that batch?”

“It is what it is, Sister.”  Says the lab tech patiently.

“Perhaps it is because we do it in a spiritual environment, calling on the lunar energies, Mother Earth, preparing them with focus on healing intent?  Perhaps it is because we tell the patients to apply with healing intent, and they do?  Perhaps it is because we have pulled in energies that you aren’t testing.  When are you going to test for the energies of the environment the medicine was made in?  That would be something!”

“Do you have anything else, Sister?” the lab boy says patiently.

Meanwhile, we sold out of CBD oil within two weeks of opening the ETSY store.  This is a grand experiment, after all, and the public is embracing the medicine. 

In April and May, I began contacting dispensaries and 420 delivery services, by going to weedmaps, beginning in our home town, and working my way outward fifty miles in all directions, I contacted cannabis suppliers.  They were very slow to respond, but by July 1^st, around the same time I opened the ETSY store, I had three of them regularly buying products from us.  Just two days ago, I did the numbers for July and between the on-line store and the local cannabis suppliers, we are doing over a hundred a day in sales (humble, but auspicious beginnings).

When it comes to the many facets of this business diamond, it seems my dual Gemini nature reflects in all.  Marketing has two prongs:  dispensaries and direct sales via the internet.  Marketing has more prongs within those prongs (somewhere), which are wholesale and retail, agent force and direct marketing.  Our product line has two prongs:  Regulated and de-regulated (must be sold through dispensaries or can be sold to public). 

The big challenge right now is in securing a CBD crop.  We have two mini-farms going with all CBD crop but that won’t be ready until November.  On Wednesday night, under the new moon, under what we, the Sisters, call the mid-Summer moon, we put up our last batch of CBD oil (see photos) until harvest -- unless we can shake some high CBD leaf loose from the universe.  Just yesterday, I put out the distress call to the Native’s.  They might be able to help.   But that’s the joy of being in a newly deregulating business.  You never really know from whence the great challenges come.  Here in the central valley, it is hard to convince growers to grow the high CBD, low THC strains.  None of them believe there is a market. 

I am not allowed to write about growing; I have been forbidden to write on grow operations, which makes me crazy, because that is wild, wild, west shit and catnip for my cat-soul.   Maybe I’ll write about it, just a little.  Stay with me . . .

Sister Kate