Author: johnbrandall

John Randall is a writer living in Missouri. His interests include camping, running, walking, cutting and burning wood, messing around with magnets, foraging, and listening to podcasts, many of them about baseball.

TK-91 by Cresco

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Fourth Impression, 3 hr effect

May 30, 2025, 15:43.

TK-91 to start the Friday afternoon. The Cubs trying to come back versus the Reds in the ninth at Wrigley, 2 out, 6-2 Cincy.

The TK-91 is not tasty, not to me. Toasted flavor. Earthy, acrid. But it's got me buzzing around, gonna do some outside (deck) work. Gonna clean the toilet. I want to do something worth doing.

...some time passes, maybe an hour...

Did a lot more cleaning out deck boards than I imagined. Found a couple spots where the wood is rotting. I'm gonna sling a little Bondo. Then I'll have my first drink of the day. 17:46

18:42. It's been a functional effect. Still haven't finished my first drink. I also Bondoed a metal chair and put out a new suet cake...


Read the full strain review here...

A Note on the Purple Fig

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I rolled the last joint of it this morning. There's a pinch left, two-tenths of a gram—maybe. Otherwise, all I have left is in the form of two .37-gram joints.

It's been excellent flower. Potent, floaty, focused, wide. They have been one-joint nights. I don't know if it's the strain that's doing all the work or if I've simply been satisfied with all of the work I've been getting done, house-work mainly. I work a full day on my feet, have a few drinks, wander around my deck, look out into the trees, smoke my joint of Purple Fig, read a little, and then I say, "Goodnight, I'm going to bed..."


Read the full post of this weed review/nursing home visit/cannabis gummy review...

Animal Face by Rythm

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Animal Face making me emotional. But it feels good. It was the Rx. This is really happening. Is this really happening? The strawberries are soft against my rounding, offset jaw. I listen to the same album again again.

There are no imperfect circles. Nothing burns in reverse. A late (for me) chillum of Animal Face and I'm energized anew. Tired but space-flirty. 10:46. It's 10:46. I took a nap earlier. That's the only reason I'm still awake. That phase in my life when I worried about the weather.

It has happened, it just hasn't happened yet. Are you playing mind games? No, that was a word game. Is there a difference? Half a samara falls into her empty cup of wine. A great crowd emerging under your blue feather.

The quick ground of every morning.

Animal Face might be my jam. I am silly high, alone, and that is the last of my jar. Ripped through it, wasted some of it too drunk or already high on something else. The sativa-esque head rush right away is intense, unparalleled. Then you want to sit down for the rest of the evening. Maybe drink a little wine and at some point have something to eat...


Read the full post here...

Night Owl Haze by Rythm

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Returning to the Night Owl Haze after a couple weeks away in the desert. I took a couple Night Owl rolls with me. Smoked the first in Ruidoso, New Mexico. My wife and I were staying in the Best Western Pine Springs in Ruidoso Downs. It's a cool, old hotel. I stepped out into the picturesque grounds there and burned one. I was zooted. We watched the finale of Cory Booker's record-breaking Senate filibuster speech on CSPAN2. The Haze offered some aphrodisiacal properties. It was a good night.

The bud is old by this point but once I added a moisture pack to it, and let it sit for 24-48 hours, I was greeted with a surprising aroma from the jar. It was a turpentine aroma, with some inky or even magic marker scent as well. And it started to have a flavor as well. Berry-like. Maybe that's how Haze is supposed to taste. Light and fruity.

I haven't usually felt terribly "high" on the Night Owl Haze but it has served as fuel to keep me productive and active. It's an even-keeled effect, a background lift. We came home to water in our basement, in the HVAC ductwork. I puffed on the Night Owl Haze and just pondered, didn't get too down.

After being a little disappointed when I initially opened this eighth, I have come around on the Night Owl. I would get it again. The lineage is Screamin' Bubblegum Haze x Gorilla Glue #4 (source: link here). An unusual cross...


Read the full post here...

Acapulco Gold from Interstate 420

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Acapulco Gold is a classic strain. It was, I am told, a popular strain in the seventies. My wife's cousin had a little Acapulco Gold he shared with me a few years back. He said, "Led Zeppelin used to sing about this stuff."

It's a lyric in the song "Over the Hills and Far Away." The song goes,

Many times I've lied and many times I've listened
Many times I've gazed along the open road
Many times I've lied and many times I've listened
Many times I've wondered how much there is to know
Many dreams come true, and some have silver linings
I live for my dream and a pocketful of gold
Some Acapulco gold, every time

The last line, that mentions the strain specifically, is only included in the live version of the song from the album The Song Remains the Same, which was recorded at Madison Square Garden in 1973. You can hear Robert Plant putting a wry emphasis on "Acapulco Gold" when he adds the lyric before the guitar solo. Otherwise, I prefer the version of the song from Houses of the Holy.

When I bought the bag the budtender was quick to offer the caveat that what I was buying wasn't going to be like the Acapulco Gold from back in the day, his day. He said he used to get it and there were golden-orange hairs all over the bud.

The strain hails from Mexico. I'm not sure if it's considered a landrace. It's a sativa. Any time I see one of these classic strains offered on a menu, I'm going to give it a try. Maybe it's not the same thing Led Zeppelin was smoking in the seventies but it's as close as I'll get fifty years later...

Read the full post here...

Orange Malt from Crops

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Another great Orange Malt session. That stuff is amazing. Unassuming. Like what you would get from your best 1:1 THC:CBD gummy. No bite, not racy. What are the noids? It had me cleaning, casual, affable. What a great smoke. And it carries for three hours.

Eventually I'm going to re-up with something else, something heavy but it's 6 pm on a Sunday and I just got a lot of tedious work done, the Malt still running through my veins. It helps me feel capable, ready, open, flexible. What more can you ask for? It's not trippy, it's not spacey, it's not really a high-idea smoke. It's a get-shit-done bowl of get-after-it.

This is a Strain of the Year candidate. It has me thinking about what other strains are made from crossing Ice Cream Cake with a sativa. Because I like Ice Cream Cake a lot. Pleasant high, makes me curious and happy. But the Orange Malt has more energy behind it. Also makes me interested in the other parent, Mimosa. You can get "straight-up" Mimosa. You can get Clementine, too. I'm intrigued.

Let me take this moment to appeal to the Crops brand, owned by Justice Co. I see that Crops is on the menu in Troy, IL and in Maryville, IL (until just now I did not realize there was a dispensary in Maryville... I am never up that way). I go through Sauget, IL, or can, on a regular basis. Please send some Crops drops back to Beyond/Hello. I have supported Crops on the Beyond/Hello menu but there hasn't been any new Crops dropped in Sauget all year. I have had your Orange Malt, Donny Burger, Lime OG, etc. I will buy it if you get it back on the Beyond/Hello menu. And with that, I am out—


For the full write-up, click here...

91 Bacio, Fig Farms

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This 91 Bacio stank up the basement (twice) when I ground up around a gram to roll joints. It was a minty, piney, herbal smell. Pleasant! It wasn't even a fresh jar. Package date was 8.30.2024. But it had an inner seal, that was in place, effective. If the seal is there, and if it's true, and if the flower is cured well, the jar can last. That's a few ifs, and you never know until you open the jar. That's the Schrödinger's cat of it all. Another Catch 22.

Why 91?

There is a Chem 91, one of the apocryphal Chem Dawg phenotypes. And there are two Chem Dawg phenos listed as ancestors of LD-95, one of this 91 Bacio's parent strains. But neither of those phenos (D and No 4) are Chem 91. So, I don't know. I go to their website but there isn't any additional info. In fact, they list the strain on their page of "Retired" strains. Hmmm. Their site: link here.

It hits. Dependable. For $25? Maybe the best value in the country. Hopefully not truly retired! I lit a sparker. A half joint from last night. It's early for me to smoke, 8:30.

The sun's energy, the fog lifting. Took a solar shower powered by a topper of tea kettle boiling water. Not 100% solar. Pour the tea kettle water into the solar shower bag to raise the temp of the water in the bag, which was left over for yesterday because I never showered.

Felt great this morning, though. My head was itching. I needed conditioner, maybe. Birds, sun, humidity on the run—


The full rundown, click here

Gelato by Vibe

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I am feeling the prototypical Sherb head-rush as I put pen to paper after puffing a creamy bowl of Gelato. It is raining here, all of a sudden, and we don't need it, don't want it. Today was pretty nice all day but this rain will flare up the humidity bomb as soon as the rain has ended. There is no A/C in this old farmhouse so I'm looking at a damp tossy-turny night in my sleeping bag.

I believe that it's the Burma ancestry in Sherb/Gelato that gives me this sativa-like head-rush at the onset of the smoke session. Sunset Sherbet is a cross between GSC and a strain called Pink Panties. The Burmese sativa landrace is in the Pink Panties. By the way, to mention a strain that I never ever see as a stand alone on menus, I cite Pink Panties. I once saw Girl Scout Cookies (GSC) but only once, which makes me skeptical that it actually was GSC, but probably one grower's "take" on a remake of the classic weed building block.

But I digress, because that's what happens when I get the Gelato feathering my capillaries and synapses. It's a head-rush and it can cause some paranoia, some bite at the outset but it usually mellows out into more of a chill experience. Unlike some other sativas that give me that initial bite-y paranoid rush but then leave me feeling stodgy and stoned, e.g. Durban Poison and Sour Diesel. Sorry, they're just not for me!

Thunder. Everywhere walking this mix of pasture and woods I saw the work, the weave of water. I was looking for morels. I found four, two of which were big, one of which was huge...


My full strain review of Vibe's Gelato is clickable here...

OMG by Rythm

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As I smoke, my mind wanders. I stay (somewhat) anchored by putting pen to paper. These strain reviews are not always (just) about the weed but about where my mind goes when the smoke fills the room.

I was gonna say. Life itself is an addiction. If I feel better after or while drinking and smoking, then why should I not try to feel better? Yes, drinking and smoking also are addictions. So is getting up everyday. So are money, fame, career, reputation, social status. Which are all (also) damaging but people go in search of fame and career and money and social media buzz and society just nods its head and understands those endeavors. It's expected and respected to go out and try to make lots of money and tout one's accomplishments in life. I don't care about fame or reputation so I have some drinks and smoke a joint and blog about weed. Weeds of grass!


Read the full review of OMG here...