#TrueStory: I spent 36 hours trimming pot on a pot farm
HAHAHA!! Do they call them "pot farms"?? Is the preferential word, pot factory? Weed growing facility? Work with me here, guys!!! A nerd needs to know!!!
K ... so here's what happened and how it all went down.
First, lemme grab a song ...
ERRRRRR ... hold that thought, this isn't the song I wanna listen to while writing this ... it was WAYYY mellower.
Yep. This works.
Alrite, so on Monday I woke up super super super antsy. Totes not my style. I may work a good hustle, but for reals - I chillax and am straight up, down, left, and right a pretty mellow chica. My job in life is to play the best card that is ever dealt to me, not try to deal 'em. I very very very much just roll with the punches.
The problem is, I got dealt a lot of punches all at once. I was trying to wrap up the TV show I filmed in CT that caused my ADD to go THROOUUGHHHH THE ROOFFFF. Way to break out the world's tiniest violin right? But stressors are still stressors; I got overwhelmed. Doesn't happen often, but when it does I totes pull a Zack Morris and just say FREEZE!!!!
I needed a break.
It was about noon on Monday, and I was writing in the kitchen and looked out the window and said I would KILL to get a sponsored meditative retreat or something. I was a bit vague, but the creation was there.
Flash forward a few hours later, I get a text from my buddy Lindsay Mc asking if we could hang out and talk some biz. I was game ... but a few hours go by, and I got TIIRRREEEEDDDDDD!!! I am human, ftr ... this does happen on occasion. =)
So, I was kinda planning on asking Lindsay if we can kick it another night, and then the roomster came home after having a RAD day and was like - we need to hit up happy hour!!! Ahhhh fuckicky fuck fuck - I'm game, and that means that I'm also on with Lindsay.
So we all head to Barneys and Lindsay drops by and tells me this story of how she just got back from trimming pot in Northern California.
Now, first lemme preface this by saying this chick is BAT SHIT CRAZY. Like, I know I'm crazy ... I really do ... this chick has hitchhiked through various African countries, currently has Malaria, skates, skis, and boards every kind of board there is to have. She's insane ... and I love her for it.
I was not too terribly surprised to hear that she was doing something like this, but my next logical question was - WHEN CAN I DO IT TOO?!?!?!?
We then batted back and forth with schedules, I was doings this ... she was doing that ... then we both finally said fuck it! Let's just go tomorrow. She texted her buddy and asked if it was kosher if we came up, and he was in ... 16 hours later we hit the road!
Before we even took off, I made sure it was okay with Lindsay for me to write about it. I'm totally down for as many adventures as possible in life, but if I am told I can't write about something - I'm not interested in doing it. For REALS, I'm a lifecaster!!! I love love love you guys, and if I can't share it, I'm just not at all interested.
She said it was cool as long as I never disclosed where exactly it is that we were going. You all can guess til the cows come home, but I can never publicly confirm nor deny a location - and CERTAINLY cannot create a foursquare checkin.
HAHAHAHA omg I can read it now ... "Pot Palace" ... no no wait, "Pot Paradise."
::breathes in:: ahhhh
<tangent> I'm actually not a stoner. It fucks with my ADD and can make me really really really anxious, on top of the fact that I genuinely LOVE working and hustling. Laying back realizing that every word that comes out of my mouth is fucking stupid does nothing for me. FOR REALS!!! The details of my own incompetence does not interest me ... sooooooooo I don't do it. Well, I do it, but I've never bought it, and in LA it's a social thing. Straight up, in LA people smoke. Not cigs, we're pretty kosher with our clean air (HAHAHAHA CLEAN AIR HILARIOUS), but they LOOVVEEE their pot! Seriously, we're known for it - and it's legal here if you have a card. Pretty much the only time I'll smoke is if I'm kicking it with friends during some sort of after hours, or if I'm about to bone. DUDE!!! Sex stoned = makes my life. Good god, I will fuck your dick right ooooooffffffffffff. Yeah. I gotta have sex stoned again soon. hahaha - omg stop talking Jen. I'm getting too horny and I have to finish writing this. </tangent>
We hit the road and I snapped these picturinos ...
Seriously AH-MAZING!!! These were taken on the 5 somewhere south of the SUPER SMELLY COWS!!!
OMG OMG OMG OMG THEY WERE SOOO BAD!!!
Look at Lindsay ...
Priceless ... and captures the moment perfectly.
SERIOUSLY!! You couldn't even breathe through your mouth without COMPLETELY wanting to barf.
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
Smellyyyy coooowwwwwwwwwsss!!!
K ... so that happened ... then we got up there after a bajillion hour of a drive. Literally ... BAJILLION. Actually, it wasn't that long, and Lindsay and I brainstormed the entire way, so it was pretty rad.
We were still a little while out from our meeting place with Lindsay's friend, and the weather started to turn pretty gnarly. Out of nowhere it started to get super super super foggy.
Now this part is absolutely no exaggeration ... we were going literally 10 mph, and it was the CURVIEST road ever, with only a handful of cars, and oh yeah - we were GOING UP A MOUNTAIN!!! This wasn't even just foggy though, this was very literally impassable. The only problem was we couldn't even see the road to pull over, and Lindsay remembered that all there was was a SUPER steep drop off from the cliff.
She goes, OMG I'm so glad you can't see anything right now ... you'd be freaking out - there are no guard rails up here - it's a straight drop down.
Instead of freaking out, I just turned up the Mumford and Sons we had been listening to for LITERALLY the entire car ride.
If we're gonna die, at least we'll be rockin out the entire way!!!
We both stayed alarmingly calm as I guided her as best as I could, and she stayed suppperrrrr close to the Jeep Cherokee in front of her.
Dudes, I am from Connecticut. I learned how to drive in BLIZZARDSSSS and this chick is bat shit and drives up to Big Bear all the time ... this. was. bad. really bad. Had I been driving - I would have prolly cried. No joke. Super duper scary time.
We both made a conscious effort to turn our fear into laughter. We imagined the headlines if we did go over the cliff ... 2 girls die in over-turned car wreck ... they may or may not have been on their way to trim pot in an undisclosed location. OMG between my google searches and posts, we would have been had. Been HAADD I tell you!
Yeah, tangent ... sorry about that.
So, we get to our meeting place where we have to leave the car. See, to even get to the pot farm (if that is what we are calling it), you have to meet at a location and then get taken in an off road vehicle to an undisclosed mountain location.
Dudes, this shit was LEGIT!!! I WAS OFF GOOGLE MAPS!!!
The drive up there took a while, and kinda reminded me of those off road rides at Disney or Busch Gardens. We went through water, and SUUUCCHHHHHHHHH bumpy roads - I now know why seat belts were invented. I didn't know my body could flap around that lifeless before.
We finally make it up to the top of the mountain, and arrive at this little cabin like thing. It wasn't really like a cabin, it was just this super small one room house with two mattresses on the floor, a series of sleeping bags laying around, and a fire going in the make shift fireplace. It was SUPPERRRR rustic, but kinda cool at the same time. It made sense that a house like this was off the grid.
We set up our beds courtesy of the blankets from David and Goliath, and called it a night.
About 4 hours later something woke me up. Mind you, I've slept in my car in Venice, and slept on LITERALLY hundreds of couches and various beds all across the country for the last year ... nothing. nothing. nothing. wakes me up.
Except for an earthquake.
A pretty big one ... we were deep, deep, deep, deep, in the woods somewhere - and I felt the WOOORRLLLDDD shake three times. It was funny, I remember waking up and seeing a bunch of faces, but thinking unless I am already dead, I'm just gonna go back to sleep.
Then we all woke up to this ...
Pretty gnarly. Reception at this place was so bad though, I couldn't get a signal out, nor could I check anything online. Not gonna lie, that was weird.
Either way, everyone was fine, we all shared stories of how we all looked at each other and immediately went right back to sleep. Pretty fucking funny.
Then we started trimming! See, when you buy pot, it's broken down ... not in the full pot plant form like it grows in.
This is how it grows ...
This is how you buy it ...
For 36 hours, I served as that middle person. HAHAH!!
Dudes, they have someone come in and cut the plants and what not from the actual growing area ... but then they put it in black garbage bags and have trimmers come in and cut it up into sellable pieces.
We all sat around at our little stations inside this little barn (I use the word barn because it was a rectangular structure without any windows - but it was a pretty nice barn like place, don't let the word fool you!). There were about 15 of us total. Two managers/ over-see-ers, and the rest all trimmers. It was cool too, man, these peeps were all from around the world. A couple of peeps were in from Barcelona, one chica from Bali, a bunch from Mexico, and then you had two whiter than white cracker looking chicas from Los Angeles. HAHA!!
Lindsay is super social, so she started talking to everyone ... I put in headphones and just drifted away to the sound of The Secret on audio book. (UGH! SO GOOD!!!)
It was weird, it took me about an hour before I fully caught on to how to trim properly (you have to cut off the crows feet which are like the little V stem things, and make the stems as tight as possible), but after a while I felt like Mr. Miyagi with a bonsai. It was SOOOOOOOOOOO relaxing, and I literally started to slip into this zen like state.
Trim, cut, bag. Trim, cut, bag. ::insert motivational quote from The Secret - We are like magnets - like attract like. You become AND attract what you think::
Trim, cut, bag. Trim, cut, bag. ::insert motivational quote from The Secret - We don't need to complicate all the "reasons" behind our emotions. It's much simpler than that. Two categories .. good feelings, bad feelings::
Trim, cut, bag. Trim, cut, bag. ::insert motivational quote from The Secret - Happy feelings will attract more happy circumstances::
It was great! Well, minus all the hash that got all over my hands ...
That wasn't so great. You have to remove it with olive oil. Felt weird, but if you didn't it just absorbs into your skin and can give you SUPPPERRRR trippy dreams like I had last night!!! OMG! Something about Pete Cashmore, Ben Parr, and a donkey. There you go ... that's all you get.
UGHHHH Pete Cashmore.
STOP IT JEN!!! FOCUS!!!!
Anyway, I just got in the zone and managed to stay there throughout the day. OH! And it was so rad too, they fed us breakfast, lunch, and dinner ... they came around with joints if you wanted to smoke, and at 5pm they gave us all beer.
Can I move in here?!?!? Seriously?!?!?! Super nice people!!! When my ADD kicked in, Lindsay and I even got to go on this BEA-UTIFUL hike ...
I was SUPER nervous wearing these things in the woods, btw!! hahaha I didn't want to get shot or eaten ... but the duderino owned LITERALLY the entire mountain, so there were no hunters. YAYYYYYYYY for life!!!
Red Wolf and Night Owl Spirithoods! Click our heads for more info!
We were kosher, and got back to trimming.
It was super rad ... we went all day, and into the night. I lasted until about 10pm before my fingers were going to fall off. It was pretty amazing though - you could just do your own thing, and no matter what they paid by the pound. Some people got up and danced to the music that was playing, others went off and did yoga, while a few more just sat around and talked. I've never been in an environment like that - it was like adult camp where we were all stoned either directly or indirectly. DUDEESSS!!! You can't be in that room and not end up stoned. Between the poor ventilation, and just the management of the pot in your fingers I was high for literally the entire time.
It was just what I needed though. I have to admit, this was the first time very literally in my entire life that I have been away from technology. Even when I went to Mexico a few years back, the hotel had internet ... the only other times were when I was like 15 and 16 and a foreign exchange student in Europe. Then I don't think we had the internet ... but that was also 10 and 11 years ago.
This was a big deal for me to be able to unplug for that long.
Well ... I did manage to find signal in one TEENY TINY section ... where I got to post this!
I just love what I do, man. I just need to be able to figure out a way to integrate getting my hands SUPER dirty every once in a while. I need to do physical work unrelated to tech every now and again. It's good for the brain and good for the soul.
So there you go! That happened! Lindsay kept us from going over a cliff, I was deep deep deep in the woods during a super gnarly earthquake, smoked some ganja, slept on a floor, and channeled my inner Miyagi.
Oh and if you buy a super fancy pants purple-ie bag of weed in the near future, I may have cut that!!!
It's cool, don't worry - there was running water at the cabin so I totes washed after I went to the bathroom!
HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH!! omg ... I need to go ... wait, not like go ... "go" but go as in leave and smoke my souvenir!!!!! YES!!!!
Peace love and lollipops, TNTML!!! Another epic adventure!!! xoxoxxoxo
Special thanks to Effing Gear for the clothing that I wore for literally the entire trip. SERIOUSLY it was COLDDD!!! I would take a pic of me in the hoodie I was wearing, but it's super smelly and covered in pot ... but here's the hat that kept my face from getting sun burned on the car ride home. AH-MAZING!
Click my nerdy noggin for more info on how you too can own this piece of AWESOME!! & HAHAHA! I think there is still hash under my finger nails!!
#winning
