Orient Express & more from the Buddhist Arc

Krystalica Reprisal

The stash has either changed character at this age, or, the third plant was different. Chugging on half a gallon of it still. The strawberry-ness has faded. Comparatively, Wild Thai still has a bit of sour fruit when you break it up. Krystalica is dry and actually kind of bland.

Nevertheless, two tokes in, and it looks like you dropped your joint in motor oil.

This seems to be an "extra medium", it's not light, nor is it heavy. Seems to me to be a chest-to-throat centered thing. A sort of mild herbal muscle relaxer. I think some people would like this if they didn't want mental cloudiness or groggy feelings. I'm not quite sure if it's stoned or high in a recreational way. It seems very "in the moment" for its particular kind of effect like some people might take a back pill after work. It's not quite what I would be looking for as a warm fuzzy body complement to Bhutanese.

Those plants were pretty dang serious in veg and made the second-densest of these buds although they are still a bit frizzy. The flowering pattern was not as slam solid as Nemesis, but it was a fair portion of inner growth, not bare branches.

I will of course keep trying it to perhaps find a more recreational or personal aspect; the Thai is closer to what I would think of as recreational, even if I can't quite give it any fancy traits.

Older and wiser now, I figured out a few things from experience.

One is that vaporized thc concentrate is of no interest to me.

Secondly, Krystalica comes in as that wake and bake joint where the wake part does not involve getting out of bed. It's prolonged daze weed. Not the kind of thing I look for, often, which unfortunately is out of balance with the quantity remaining. It doesn't put you to sleep, in other words doesn't work the same way in order to take a nap, but if you are going to fail to get up, seems to work better then.

I noticed a Wild Thai buzz stuck until after a store trip, still had it decently and lingered a while.

I have reached the final stash of Bhutanese, which is the plant with no or hardly any seeds, a spitting image of Mandala's picture. Here again the lemon has mostly faded, the herb is crumbly, but not quite tobacco crumbly, still a bit spongy. Its resin streaks on the paper are a lighter color and seems to be more of the same buzz. Going to verify that momentarily.

We could easily have already planted something if we were going for behemoths.

It was a pinner earlier, and, a relatively skimpy twig with about four foxtails and a modest top is more than adequate for a leg.

This thing calls itself a bread box, but, it's longer than most loaves of bread. Some kinds of baguettes might go in it, or a whole bunch of croissants. In any case, this stash is the size of a bread box. I guess it cheats at twenty questions.

The buds themselves are no longer particularly pretty. But it smokes quite smoothly. Not much flavor, and roasted scent similar to Mekong, without its body stone. I'm kind of saying the same thing about Wild Thai, but, that seemed to retain more of its flavor, and is within the league of normal regular good weed. I like it and would probably pick it if this Bhutanese were not basically the same way, but, a bit more ethereal, wind chimey, perhaps cerebral but clearly so. Mudless. Has energy without being energizing, stays calm, without drooping. Overall, most of the other kinds are not bad, but this so far goes most with what I would think of as standard joint weed. Slightly intense with good equilibrium.

Much more so than a tube of juice in an electronic machine.

Next go round will be starting to go after its warm fuzzy counterpart. Aiming towards Bhutan for this first kind of herb sounds reliable.

The batch of Wild Thai is about to run out, and, to its credit, I would have to say it kept some of its color and a bit of minty perky scent. The odor of it burning is literally cannabis, there is no other way to put it. I just have to call it good in a regular way, I never really found that it's this or that unless we were asking if it was decent regular weed, then it would be yes. It's like a base definition that could be modified by traits anything else has. Yet it has no need to be changed.

I have managed to become busy but it may be about time to give another version of Nemesis some germination, no telling what will come out of it, but I'm pretty sure it will be dense and I can octopus it and try to prevent damage.

Here we go again.

Attempting to germinate the second "mix" of Nemesis. Seeds are still large and mottled like the original. For the first time, I still have some to smoke while this is coming up. Last years made enough harvest that I would probably never run out if having some autoflowers now. But something else came up instead.

Some will be indoors. Not mine. Someone who got one of the first licenses in a new "medical" state is going to do it. Why, if you have thousands to drop on all that electric rigging, you would want seeds from me, that are not suited for indoors, is a bit baffling, but what the heck. I plan on sharing a few Nemesis, which might be good for it, and the others, well, seem "iffy" at best. In any case, we should be able to get something back, before outdoor harvest time.

No one else has really touched my weed, they all want something that looks indoor that is more narcotic, and so far I have been bent on joint weed mostly sativa which is lighter and more uplifting. I am not sure they can even register it is weed. The upswing of all this indoor and vape stuff means there is no one left to smoke a joint with. Great.

So far the Bhutanese is "outstanding in category", and I have some OE x OE, which should be pretty stable, and also, at least, a "contender in category". A lot more of those joints sounds like the best plan. I am going to fish for a warm fuzzy body weed as well. Still something different from what most of the commercial is.

That was strange. "Product by volume, not weight". I broke up less than a half gallon of Krystalica, and what that consisted of, was two joints worth of shake, something like 3/8 of popcorn, and twenty something pieces that would each roll a joint or three, and seven seeds.

I passed along the seeds, it just didn't seem like very many.

In an effort to "keep" White Bhutanese, I found that the producer is not directly selling anything. I had browsed for a warm fuzzy weed and went with Ganesh, coming from an associate, who has none of the Bhutanese and so by force of default it's going to be RSC Kumaoni. So these are both Uttarakhand based except Ganesh is a hybrid. This state is as if Nepal continued to the northwest. It is not a particularly Buddhist area, although the first tantric college to re-appear in India is there at Dehradun.

I am too used to dealing with artisanal bread, so, I did not understand the "bread box", but, it is for the ordinary loaves that are small squares but very long. So, one more Bhutanese leg from that.

From last year, I will continue to thank the White Bhutanese. Had some earlier and was fine to work on a few things. Krystalica I am not sure is such a personal favorite, since it has been very much a relaxer and probably would have put me back to sleep. It's probably fine for what it is, which, I just don't have much opportunity for that sort of thing.

So instead, we are going to refresh with some of the Wild Thai.

What happened so far is I tried to start some of the next iteration of Nemesis and the seeds were not very viable. There are a couple that came up broad leafed and darkish and seem like they will be fine. But that's probably as far as we'll go with it.

This year's Ganesh fared better and sprouted 9/10, with one being a helmet head that I am not sure will make it. So far they are kind of ordinary skimpy stretchy look like all males or bagseed or something. Seems similar that last year it was like Mandala's seedlings are all rather delicate. You have to protect them for about three weeks and then it turns into a monster.

Today it was the turn for RSC Kumaoni. These seeds are a bit on the largish side, mostly beige or light brown without much of the Nemesis type of mottling. There was a mistake and I received one too many. If a lot of these come up, there isn't going to be room for anything else.

In retrospect, there is too much Krystalica due to focusing on only a few plants, versus I wasted too much Wild Thai with sloppy habits. The smoke is lighter with little body effect, which was the intent behind trying it. It is probably best to limit the number of plants and not overcrowd.

To its credit, the crumpled up Ganesh I almost threw away, straightened out and got going. That makes 9/10 starts. Overall, those seedlings are still fairly flimsy.

With Kumaoni I am not so far seeing a high germination rate, it may be staggered. However the stems are thicker and the cotyledons are almost goofy like big clown shoes. These plants are robust and whatever is in there looks big and gets going fast. Not just in direct comparison to the others, but in memory of growing, it still seems quite sturdy.

The two Nemesis look like real plants now and still have dense internodes. Two generations of mixing and so far it seems physically the same.

There was an unusual strand of completely overcast, rainy days, which were not very desirable for seedlings. Gets them extra stretchy. The breezes mashed one flat and it quit.



Anyway, Ganesh was not much to start with, but at this point, you could say oh, yeah, those will make some nice plants. This is about three wekks from sprouting around 6/2, so, good guess. It's perhaps a hair shy of Nemesis in being dark and broad leafed. The Nemesis started branching.



Kumaoni seems more like a raw natural product without great germination and one of them is a three leafed mutant that I'm not sure knows what a growth tip is anymore. It's not very appealing. So I suppose one should not expect the stability that comes from breeding. However, for the ones that come up good, there is never any question, these are definitely some charging beauties that are making something nice. They are a lighter shade and, I would say long leafed, not pinnate, just long, with a weak or shallow sawtooth pattern. There's probably a technical word for that, and, if so, that's what I mean, if not, I don't. They are fairly easily distinguishable from the hybrids. Their development already compensated for being a week younger than Ganesh.


They are migrating out of solo cups and getting some rabbit pellets and then we will slop it with coffee grounds and fish sauce. This does not look as "big" as last year, but hopefully better individual care to each plant will do better than wasting half of it from poor procedures.

Last bowl of Nemesis


Cleaned it out, leaving fifteen or so seeds.


This year's new attempt was a disaster.


Something terrible happened, based on the fact that I was not here. After spending a couple years unemployed, basically married to the land where I could babysit plants several times a day, I picked up a part time job. Eventually it helped get new seeds, but, part time turned in to every day. So I was physically removed when vulnerable things needed attention. Most of them were destroyed.


The "giant" Kumaoni survived; it is taller than Nemesis, but, I topped those. They are developing normally. There were not many other survivors. We "might" get a female from it or Ganesh, but the odds are low on being able to say much about any ladies of these.


I went in with what I had on hand, a single randomly-mixed Krystalica and multiple Bhutanese. Since it was late, they probably won't get six feet tall. I still want to try the others, and, if I can set up a little indoor thing, that would be for Ganesh. Kumaoni will probably have to wait till next year. All I can say is it is not quite pinnate, but is a lighter, yellowy green, nice looking. We would think a male would be the fastest grower, but who knows.


It was emotionally difficult, but, compared to more money and three weeks in the mail, I couldn't re-order the stuff this far into summer.

This is odd. I thought the commercial we got was grown around here. I found out that it's really west coast medical stuff. Well, due to the crunch or whatever happened out there, right now it's bags of "mixed seconds and dings", i. e. a little cheaper to get four strains randomly dumped together.


Out of that, one was called "disgusting and grassy" and given to me. Of course, to a grower, grassy means raw, chlorophyll, hard to believe something like that would be on the market.


It's not. I don't know what it is, and it is perhaps woodsy or spicy, but not grassy.


Then of course I wind up liking it more than the "perfume" stuff. Reminds me more of the hydro from around here I used to get, with a sharpness or smack to it. Not particularly narcotic or subduing.


I don't know what to think. Having had some things now that must be at least representative of Cali and Colorado, I'm still a bit underwhelmed. I guess it's ok, but most of it isn't really a whole lot like pot that has impressed me. It seems to be for looks. I guess this piece didn't look good enough since it has a couple of longish leaf stems still on it.


To replace the disaster, all of the Bhutanese came up, something like thirteen. One of them does look like a pure designer boutique indica, I might have flipped a wrong seed in the stash, but these were all small. No telling what will come out of this, it is mixed with anything besides itself.



So unfortunately the previous attempt is down to two Kumaoni, the first, the big one, is really unreasonable. It blew by the Nemesis and I cut it, but, that is probably the fastest growing one I have ever seen. The other one is just average. Either way, it seems like wait until June unless you want them over six feet tall.

The two Nemesis I started early went male and became goat snax.


Only one of the Bhutanese really seemed to resemble itself, and that one looks like it just started female, so will have to go single cola style. Most of the rest of them look a lot more like Nemesis, except perhaps a few have narrower leaves.


The single Krystalica remained about one of the slowest things at first and is only now starting to get going.


Kumaoni looks like it's about to flower, and, when it does, it makes a bunch of needle thin leaves that curl and twist and look a bit like whiskers. The thing itself is a big, stretchy juggernaut, even the smaller one is about as big as me.


Not as much as last year, but, I have to move, and may well be able to do a small indoor thing. To keep us going, if we could keep maybe four small flowering plants at all times, and use the outdoor season mainly for sativa purposes, it should work fine. The twenty-something from last time have lasted me until now of fairly heavy use.


Only a little bit left and I started breaking roaches open, like now. I managed to scare up one of the oldest head friends I know to smoke a joint. I got there and he had two types of hydro and could not tell me where it was from, but one indica and one sativa. It looked allright but I explained the Bhutanese to him and rolled one. The response was that it was potent and just as described. That was all we needed. So perhaps I am not the only one more satisfied by backyard product.


The "scrap" weed from out west may have been dumped because it was seedy, there were six in that piece. We have gotten these bags for, I don't know, five years or something like that, and there is hardly ever a seed.

Krystalica and Kumaoni were all male, so, nothing new this run.


Just a small handful of what I thought were Bhutanese mixes.


The one plant that looked most like the parent is making foxtails, so, in some basic sense, it appears to have the ability to reproduce itself.


Everything else is making round indica type flowers. Not sure why. I perhaps simply could have tossed some wrong seeds in this pile. Next season, I will just use whatever is in the big box of it.


My boxes are pretty much empty, and I got permission to do some indoor at the new place, so the "random western medical grade" will probably go first there.


We also tried the new, to us, thing, pure THC extract. I suppose it was nice after the trouble to slear it across a doob. Just not to the point where I have any interest in smoking it raw or doing edibles. I fail to connect to modern capabilities of all possible things that can be done to a plant to make it a "marketable commodity". A few lights for backup plants due to a small harvest is ok, but, that's not going to replace outdoor sativa-leaning grows. But it may allow Ganesh to enter the fold during the otherwise "dormant" times.


The Bhutanese and one of the "somethings" are maturing, two-weekish time frame for those. The other still have all white flowers, but, no matter what has been mixed or what is dominant, it still seems to be pretty good quality. None of it is quite Nemesis slogged with columns of bud all over, although the Bhutanese is almost one big bud.


It will be nice to escape the disaster of this place, and, especially, lock up the chickens, and cannabis can just be a "lifestyle" where I try to replace cheap brickweed/expensive medical product with homegrown more of our choosing. The stealth grow here has always been in sort of a panic mode with too many factors against it. If I did not have to throw out two ounces of rot last year, we would still have some. If I didn't personally kill so much this year, we would have more. If I were to try to actually get something along the lines of what has been grown, I would never find it.

Around here, we, or I, have to do the unthinkable sometimes. In this case, it is once again the notorious "microwave method" applied to skimpy lower twigs I cut off some cannabis.


My loupe box is empty, which means someone used it and I will not be able to read trichomes. The two plants that flowered first have majority dark pistils, although everything is still mostly green, not very leaf-lossy yet. They are, perhaps, "entering peak".


Compared to the commercial medical stuff, firstly, this burns better. The expensive ones usually seem to noticeably emit water vapor, even after having traveled across the country. Secondly, aside from the taste of chlorophyll, it simply is better, to me at least.


Unknown #1 would definitely land in "acceptable hybrid" territory. It has no heaviness, no muscle relaxant like Krystalica or Sexbud, and, it doesn't really have the intense warm fuzzy I was hoping Ganesh would do, but it is either enough sativa to be uplifting, or, enough indica to have a nice body effect.


The one that at least looks Bhutanese is a bit sticky even on the skimpy fluff. It still doesn't "hit", but has a gentle onset. Still is more of a head buzz, possibly slightly warmer than the original. The plant is clumpy enough to not stand back up after recent rains. The skimpy lower bits say "yes", unless one is looking for what the medical stuff does. As itself, it looks for early November harvest, but, being mixed with what can only be defined as "not itself" has sped up the maturing without much changing the plant's appearance or effect.


I don't really have any bad feedback on any of the strains I have tried, but so far, in terms of reproducibility of something desirable, I think it is fair to say that Nemesis is a good one for dense indica growth pattern, and Bhutanese is good for sativa growth that does not require extreme ages to finish. Either one would be a candidate for mixing it with something similar to itself to push it in a certain direction.

The Bhutanese did not mix well, it lost the lemon scent and the clear effect of it, and wandered down into a non-distinct hybrid feel. It's ok, but, ideally, either not mix this one, or use something really close to it. It looked about the same, but, inside, it's not.


What's still growing is all indica appearance; I took down the first one, it got some nice purple to some of the leaves and has a minorly hideous ammoniated stench that doesn't remind me of any of the parents.


The single cola plant is too heavy to stand up on its own. Both are starting to yellow and so I guess their time will be soon.


Only some of the medical seeds worked, and something killed one of the seedlings, so a whole two of those to give a try.

In an attempt to stage a recovery, I am adding some autos this time.

After killing many of my own plants last year, none of those "medical seeds" made plants that kept going, and after I gave away some White Widow and other seeds, I never heard anything back about us getting anything from it.

So the "quick one" is Deimos which is a pretty basic Nothern Lights x Lowryder. I don't really know if it is anything we would really want, aside from the speed of it, but we'll see.

Ganesh does not seem to be available, something may have happened to Mandala, I think I got the last White Bhutanese on the market, since this is worth a re-run.

In addition we will try Kumaoni again with some Manipur. We may be able to go a little bigger now than at the last grow spot, but, this isn't exactly Oregon, no need to have already started them to make massive elephant plants; human-sized ones will probably be fine.

This winter was supposed to have been the warmest on record with record amounts of CO2 around Antartica. Here, it snowed one time in December and then rained almost every day. Most of the spring has been a bit clammy and rainy. Today looks to be the change for the nicer and so Deimos hit the dirt.

Someone, I think, may have removed the collection of containers I was working with...it is not here. We no longer have rabbits, so their ingredient will be skipped. There aren't chickens, but I am pretty sure that deer come through, so again it will have to be a caged cluster of plants, instead of trying to max them out for all they can do.

There are a couple more autos in the bonus stuff, Gnomo, which is based on Mataro Blue. The rest of them are photoperiod hybrids. So it is a random mix of ten seeds that I suppose go next. Eventually waves of sativas that are the main focus throughout May. This is no longer a "b" climate zone so frost may be a little earlier.

At the moment, Manipur may still be 2-for-1. Apparently recently there were complaints about germination, although some people still said 90-100%, for the time being, it comes with extra Manipur, just in case.

Something showed up from some place called Afghanistan, but, the intrigue is from Rasol, a traditional, isolated village 32 N and about 3,000m elevation. The village mainly honors Renuka and Rishi Jamdagni, who are the parents of Parasurama.

It may not sound very Buddhist, but, there is a famous legend mainly associated with Kalachakra which identifies the future Hindu Kalki Avatar with future Buddha Maitreya. What is rarely included is the prophecy that Maitreya's guru will be Parasurama--or, that, among the incarnations of Visnu, Parasu is the only immortal. That is saying something to the effect he has remained in a human body for around 9,000 years, and, this cycle change is so far in the indefinite future, it is untold thousands more.

Furthermore, the wife of Parasu is Dharani or spellcraft.

So this is extra generous to be able to try some Rasol as well.

It is still a bit chilly at night, which has some tendency to slow seed development. So I just now found the first sign of Deimos, a single set of albino cotyledons at the soil line; perhaps it may stand up today. That was enough of a cue to proceed to the other autos, or two Gnomo seeds, gone in today. I can't do much more until retrieving the containers.

Next will be the hybrids, and it turns out "Afghan" is from Landrace Genetics, described as (Wedding Cake x Mendo Breath) x Afghan Landrace, so all of these strains are typical, complex modern ones, and probably not much to talk about except for any yielding females that may show up.

So far I have not been that impressed by seeds I have accidentally made, but, now we have the means to try four sativas that are all fairly close to each other in geographic origin; perhaps Bhutanese can be crossed with something, and maybe attempt to reproduce the others with just themselves. I am not sure yet, since that kind of thing would require separate plots and so forth, but even the seed companies encourage you to do it, since hybridization is close to affecting even old world niches like Rasol.

Seedlings lack vigor.

I guess I can't really say that, but compared to most of the wilder stuff I am used to, Deimos is really small and slow. I had to scratch the soil to help most of it. They are small blondish seeds and the germination is fine, nine or ten of ten, two or three serious helmet heads which might not make it. However the ones that burst are...well, we'll just have to see if they turn in to actual plants. It's one you probably should baby sit in extra fine soil near a heater. Has just come out shrimpy and weak looking outdoors when it is still kind of damp and clammy. That, of course, doesn't mean it won't work in time, just that it is something different than I am used to.

I was able to find the missing containers, which is helpful.

As far as the autos, it's the same. Both Gnomos are "viable", something sprouted, but it looks too small and weak to split the hull.

If my friend with fingernails can't pick it, then, it probably just fails. I don't know what you call that. The seven Deimos decided to look like normal green sprouts with tiny little leaves, finally; the temperature went from 72 to 88 just by removing the cloud, so I threw in all the gift hybrids today.

Once we see what happens there, then, on to the land-racey sativas, three Indian, one Bhutanese kind.