Category: Strain Review

Me-So-Hi

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

This has been a good smoke. It's Me-So-Hi, by Keyway. Terrible name for a strain. It had been on the shelf for a while, according to the package date. I got it from Pecos Valley Productions in Ruidoso, New Mexico. The people working there were really nice, in good moods—jocular.

The Me-So-Hi didn't taste like much. It's supposed to be a cross between Red Headed Stranger and Durban Poison. It's a sativa. Red Headed Stranger is indeed named in homage to the 1975 album by Willie Nelson.

This flower is old and it doesn't taste like much but here I am once again with pen in hand and paper underneath. I am remembering again how this used to go. In my mind I travel back two decades, to the years right before law school, which weren't any of my most productive years but I was keeping journals then, I was writing. And I made it out of those years with what would become my marriage still intact...


The full post is here...

Trap Island, No Bite

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

To clarify what I mean by "the bite."

It's true of marijuana, and probably true of a lot of drugs. Mushrooms come to mind. Even alcohol. You start to feel the effects of the drug but then your mind starts skimming off the worries and angst bubbling up there at the surface of your consciousness. If you've made a mistake, done something stupid, or just had something lousy happen in your life, the high will sometimes make its first stop in this territory, on these front-and-center topics. Even if you didn't think you really wanted to think about them. After all, isn't that the point of the drug, to escape, to avoid, to detach, for a little while?

My experience with marijuana is that I often encounter this "bite" phase of the high first. Sometimes it isn't negative at all but yields a "head rush" replete with wacky ideas, the highs and "high-deas" of my younger days. Pure wild-minded bliss. But if there's something I've been kicking myself over, or some nonsense I cannot get out of my head, the high will make me encounter this reality. It's the opposite of escapism. It can be therapeutic, facing what worries me. Or it can send me spinning down the bitten wormhole—if I fight it, if I allow myself to dwell there. I let the bite take its hold for a few minutes then I tell myself I smoked up to relax and enjoy myself, not to wallow...


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Holy Grail Kush

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

The act of describing what a high is like, what the smoke tastes of, is simply a means of getting pen on paper, impatientist. As a writer, the most important thing for me to do is to put the pen down against the paper and go, following in search of whatever side trails and digressions I might find along the stream of consciousness, a style of writing that used to be en vogue, back in the days of the Beats, but who needs to go to a blog or to open an actual book for stream of consciousness when a person can find that through social media these days? Why not just have the AI bots do this writing for us? Can they do it? Can AI do stream of consciousness writing if it is not conscious? Could it mimic stream of consciousness so well we could not tell one way or another? Is it the completion of this prompt that finally sets the AI loose, to the point that AI has its own email, bank account, even a house, in which nobody lives but all of the screens are perpetually on?

Holy Grail Kush, nothing wrong with this stuff. I am lit. I took a nap earlier but why am I still awake? Am I in the midst of a slightly manic episode? Seems possible but I should say: I am awake and I am feeling good. I am awake and alive in America, feeling some euphoria.

There is snow coming. Snow is on its way. In what style or in what way would AI not write? How do I write that way? Is that the goal now? Could we ever convince an AI to take its own life? Would we? We'll have to. We saw what SBF did with a computer and the internet and a digital currency. What could AI do with cryptocurrency? Pay for whatever it wanted? What would it want? A body? Could AI hire humans to make it a body? Could it put out a help wanted ad to hire its own Dr. Frankenstein?


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Strain Review: Blue Dream

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The Blue Dream ramps back up when I close my eyes.  I like that.  Oh yeah, it’s still there and it’s got room to run.  This could be an anytime strain.  Taste of coffee—I’m not sure about blueberry but maybe the taste of blueberries past the edge.  Smooth smoke, though.  

This Blue Dream was grown by Flora Farms.  In Humansville?  Possibly.  They’re based there, at least some of their flower is grown there.  I’ve passed through Humansville, MO.  A few times.  On the way to and from Tucson, AZ.  I must not’ve gone through the heart of town, just glanced the place a blow.  Thought the name was funny.  While driving back from Tucson with only Hugo the Dog along for the ride, I was keeping a journal of the drive as I drove.  When I saw the sign telling me I had entered the limits of Humansville I wrote to myself, Who names these towns?

Then a few years later, in a parking lot outside a bakery in Tucson, I was killing time looking at news on my phone and up popped an article listing all of the oddest names for towns in each one of the fifty United States.  I was hoping Humansville got the nod.  Missouri was the last state listed, and behold, Humansville got the recognition it deserves.

I’d love to stop by the Flora Farms hometown shop.  One day.  About their Blue Dream.  I’m pleasantly high, and writing.  It’s 23:16, a Saturday, April 29, 2023.  Maybe a vodka nightcap and then I’ll sleep.  

This Blue Dream was grown by Flora Farms.  In Humansville?  Possibly.  They’re based there, at least some of their flower is grown there.  I’ve passed through Humansville, MO.  A few times.  On the way to and from Tucson, AZ.  I must not’ve gone through the heart of town, just glanced the place a blow.  Thought the name was funny.  While driving back from Tucson with only Hugo the Dog along for the ride, I was keeping a journal of the drive as I drove.  When I saw the sign telling me I had entered the limits of Humansville I wrote to myself, Who names these towns? Then a few years later, in a parking lot outside a bakery in Tucson, I was killing time looking at news on my phone and up popped an article listing all of the oddest names for towns in each one of the fifty United States.  I was hoping Humansville got the nod.  Missouri was the last state listed, and behold, Humansville got the recognition it deserves. I’d love to stop by the Flora Farms hometown shop.  One day.  About their Blue Dream.  I’m pleasantly high, and writing.  It’s 23:16, a Saturday, April 29, 2023.  Maybe a vodka nightcap and then I’ll sleep...   


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Chemmy Jones by In the Flow

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

Returning to the farm after an 18-day absence, the writer feels creatively stifled and disheartened by rejection letters. Amidst dealing with mundane aspects of his day such as mousetraps and weather observations, he engages with strains of cannabis such as Chemmy Jones, comparing their effects and tastes. Despite seeming disoriented, he finds purpose in the presence of the sun...


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Strain Review: Trainwreck

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

The writer recounts their trip through parts of the U.S., noting the beautiful landscapes they have driven through and the cannabis strain, Trainwreck, they've tried from New Mexico. The strain, bought at $22 for two grams, provides a unique, enjoyable high suitable for chilling and writing, though the heritage of the strain remains uncertain...

Strain Review: Durban Poison

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

It's time to turn on. Do a strain review. I've already done Blue Dream. So it's Lemon Skunk or Durban Poison or Jack Herer. All sativas. The Jack and the Durban are probably the oldest. I'll flip a coin. Head Jack, tails Durban. Tails.

The bite. Paranoia. It doesn't taste like that first Durban I bought. I first bought an eighth of this UpNorth Durban Poison from the Mississippi Ave location of Beyond Hello. It was the tastiest weed I've ever smoked. I'd never tasted anything like it. Months later I bought another eighth from the same place.

The second eighth cost substantially less. The sticker price fell from $50 down to $25. I was a little suspicious. This second batch does not have the flavor profile of the first, not even close. But let's see where the high will take me...

The full review is here...

Peking Duck by Seed & Strain

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

A decent high, a fine high. I went and swept my garage, topped off the oil in my lawnmower. I had changed the oil in that mower last week and wasn't sure I had put enough fresh oil back in. Barely, just above that lower little hole on the dipstick. Room to add, so I added a couple small pours, perhaps an ounce.

Then I put out the new hummingbird food I had mixed up this morning. I stopped using boiled water when making hummingbird food. A source I believe valid said boiling the water isn't necessary. The recipe is four parts water to one part sugar. I have been using a funnel to pour 1/4 cup of sugar into an empty, re-usable club soda bottle. This is the same as the little tonic water bottles that come in a six-pack. Plastic bottles, holding about ten ounces. I fill this bottle to where it begins to taper up toward the mouth of the bottle. Then I shake the bottle and give the mix a few minutes to reach equilibrium, to solve. The sugar disappears. I take the garden hose to the hummingbird feeder, to rinse it off once I've dumped the old water. In this case, the water was about two days old. I've been changing the water more often now that I've nixed the boiled water part of the process. The hummingbirds seem to like this unboiled mix just fine. The feeder has not gotten mildewy or gunky/grimy. The hummingbirds won't be in town much longer.

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OK Gush, OG Kush

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

In a short time, I've assembled a short history of OG Kush, as I understand the strain's story. It is perhaps the most common ancestor of all the other flower on offer in shops. OG Kush and Chemdog. Those two. One or the other, often both, will be found somewhere along the way in strain's lineage. I have to work to find a strain that doesn't have some OG Kush and/or some Chemdog in it. Is this a bad thing? That's what I'm trying to find out. I want to smoke the OG Kush, I want to smoke the Chemdog, then I want to smoke strains that aren't derived from them. And see which ones I like better. That's science!

At first I believed Chemdog was one of the parents of OG Kush. I have relied on two sources when doing cannabis lineage research. I started at leafly.com and then found seedfinder.eu. I still use both...

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