...
2020 - So much promise held in this upcoming year. So much to do.
I'm back bitches!!!!
I know I faltered a bit at the end of the year. I've had a lot on my emotional plate. I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve, which is a blessing and a curse.
This next year - is going to be a roller coaster I do believe. I'm poised for so much growth in so many different facets of my life - it's like a culmination year - feels like so much has been building to this very moment. I've seen it in my minds eye, the fork in the road - the moment when things change. It's all about choice.
I've made some strange choices the last part of 2019. I've taken some extremely ignorant risks. Selling flower again to offset income desires. Not smart. I consider going to Boston and showing my face - and becoming "real" to some people a huge risk. I consider letting a woman into my life to be perhaps the dumbest move of the decade. Certifiable. Hand me my award..
I've been told before, "You're not going to be happy until you're in prison, are you?" - in regards to my absolute failure to mitigate and manage the risk assessments.
Even with all that - I'm still - without question - so beyond hype - just F.U.C.K.I.N.G. excited about what's next. About growing cannabis again. I love this plant. I really do. I wish I knew the exact words to say to give everyone that "ah-ha" moment...
Cannabis saved my life. It returned to me my rational mind. It freed me from a life of scheduled and prescribed addiction. Cannabis gave me an alternative. Not just to medicine - but to life. Cannabis set me free. Mind. Heart. Body. Soul. Cannabis saved me.
I've been asked - WTF are you doing in an illegal state. Why isn't someone like you in Cali or Colorado or Oregon?
I live on the front lines. People seem to forget we are at war with our government. Battles have been won, but the war still rages. There are still human beings in cages for this plant. The war is NOT OVER. We have not won yet. There is still work to be done. The tides never change if everyone seeks safety and forgets how we got to a point of change in the first place. Civil disobedience.
"It can all start from a seed." "They can't catch us all." "At times I forget, it takes balls to do this.”
I knew she wasn't "the one". 
there is an allure to her - a beauty all her own. So while gardening in general is great, I've not found anything I enjoy growing as much as cannabis.
Blessings to you, Frank! The holidays can and do do that to us all. ‘19 exposed a lot of things I’d rather not look at, but you can’t fix it if you won’t look, and like you, I’ve got big changes in my near future, ready to strike out on my own again. At 70, without friends, family, or resources beyond my own work and effort, it’s a hard thing to look at hard, but when you’re in the wrong place doing the wrong things, eventually you have to look.
One reason is I, too, need to grow. My growing experiences are nothing, one plant never more than 14” high, handled as ignorantly as you could imagine with the most unproductive result imaginable. Except I fell in love with the plant - or rather, I fell in love with the spirit of the plant. I used to sit with it for hours, just looking at it.
Like you in a prohibition state; and while I might be able to work a connection that could pull me to legal territory, my roots are here. What’s left of my people are here, and I will not abandon what I have left. I have feelers out, I have some base, still developing contacts in search of a landing situation from which to build out. I’m old but not worthless, and I do plenty of hard work, so I’m not afraid. Except...of casting up somewhere, too old to work, no base, homeless. I’d like to skip that. I hate moving and can’t look forward to the transition because the transition will break a lot of what I still have...but... I don’t care anymore. Nothing’s a bigger risk than not breaking out, whatever the cost.
I only tell this silly story to let you know that I feel it too.
Hope it’s your best year yet, all around
As our friend *ibechillen* says, it’s largely been people that have been the problem: in the last installment, I had bought a house and outbuilding, and was designing things in my head and pricing equipment...when I learned that my new next-door neighbor was the local chief of police...lost the house in the mortgage mess (‘collateral damage’ they call it), and my credit, savings, and investments with it - and with the exit screw job I got from my until-then wife.... moved to an apt without room or privacy, then into my current situation thanks to next (now current, soon ex) where I don’t run anything, there is opposition to weed, and there is literally no room for even a 2x2, and I’d be in the street if I pushed it. I’ve fought pretty hard a while not to be forced into that position; it’s been difficult, but this is about me, not her, not us, so I can’t mix my needs and reasons with hers, yet I can’t avoid it.None of our stories are silly. It's those collective stories that make us a movement.
I can't imagine, getting to 70 - and NOT having had the experience of growing this plant. Without knowing your current situation, I'd encourage you to look into getting a small 2 x 2 tent - or, framing out a small space - but get a garden going!!!
There are enough soil recipes and fertilizer charts around the internet these days, that anyone should be able to pull off a decent harvest with some proper planning.
Great seeds available all over the place now as well. Maybe go with some feminized beans to ensure you don't have to sort out any males. Check out Relentless Genetics for good modern feminized crosses - or Nspecta CSI: Humboldt.
I understand being rooted to a particular area/location. I've moved around a lot in my life and can't really call any one place "home". I've held a small resentment in my thoughts over the years because of that. Many others, who have lived in one place their entire lives, have that established "good 'ole boy" network in which to build their existence around. I've never had that. It's always sort of been me against the world and blazing my own path to a not yet arrived at destination.
Feel free to ask me for help regarding your growing journey. Let's see that you have a plant that is at least 20" tall in 2020.
This thread is proof it's like riding a bike. Once you know - you never forget.
