Category Archives: Daily Life Of A Pot Farmer

The Day The Wave Hit.

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By Mikal Jakubal

Note: I had started the previous post about seeds before the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. I wanted to finish the story as it was, so what I excluded was the fact that as I was off photographing those seeds, a boombox in the background at the friend’s house was tuned to our local community radio station, KMUD, providing updates on the tsunami that had just hit the Northcoast that morning. I began writing this, but had to put it aside while I studied for my EMT recert exam last week. Having passed that sucessfully, I can get back to writing about film making and weed growing and other things Humboldt.

With so much attention on the tragedy unfolding in Japan, readers from outside Northern California or coastal Oregon may not have realized that the Northcoast got walloped with a tsunami that reached at least eight feet in Crescent City, just to the north of Humboldt County. There, the waves and surge completely destroyed the marina and many of the boats that had not been moved out. Most of the local fishing fleet got warning, rode out the waves at sea and are now berthed in Humboldt Bay until the marina gets rebuilt in Crescent City Harbor. One man was killed when he was swept into the water near the Klamath River just to the south.

Shelter Cove is about 15 narrow, curvy miles from where I live. The only low-lying structure is the boat ramp, though houses along the lower edges of the waterfront are less than twenty feet above the high tide level on a small cliff. The waves that came in around 7am were approximately 6′ high and smashed up against the cliffs. Atypically for me, I slept in late that morning and didn’t look at any news for a while, so I didn’t even know about the earthquake and tsunami until almost lunch time. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was predicting possible peak waves for The Cove around 3pm, with the danger subsiding by 7pm.

When I got to The Cove shortly after 3 o’clock, I went straight to the boat ramp. Up at the top, by the fish cleaning station, an impromptu party was in progress. Several local musicians were playing, while others watched the water for wave action and traded stories about The Cove. Beer and weed were consumed openly, but always with an eye out for the local Sheriff’s Deputy who had warned them once already about drinking in public. As I raced to set up my tripod and camera in case the 3pm wave predictions panned out, a local woman in “Humboldt Honey” imprinted sweatpants reached for the camera and asked if I wanted her to film me. I prefocused the camera, adjusted the settings, hit the record button and handed it to her. I said a few words while she filmed and tried to focus. I’ve been busy setting up the office, so still haven’t processed that footage. If there’s anything funny on it, I’ll post it here.

The word coming across the radio was that the tsunami danger had passed, so the Deputy opened up the beach. Surfers immediately raced down to take advantage of the waves. What self-respecting surfer would miss a once in a lifetime opportunity to surf tsunami waves—even if they were only three feet high at that point? While there were no further large waves, the sea was behaving very oddly. Sea levels would surge between the normal high-tide and low-tide points every fifteen minutes or so. One of the old-timers who had lived there and watched this water come and go all his life said he’d never seen anything like it. Apparently the last tsunami, in ’64, nailed Crescent City, killing 11 people and then continued right on past Shelter Cove to hit Ft. Bragg, California, not far down the coast. The old-timer said there wasn’t even a surge in the Cove back then.

This animated NOAA wave propagation map provides some perspective on how the energy carried by the tsunami propagates irregularly across the sea. The wave, though it begins at a point, rapidly encounters bathymetric irregularities (ocean floor topography) as it expands outward. The wave splits, wrinkles and bounces back onto itself, rebounds off continents, refracts around peninsulas, reflects and rolls over itself until it transforms the entire Pacific into a shimmering, quivering lake of tsunami Jello.

This NOAA wave amplitude chart shows another version of this energy manifests itself. The colors correspond to wave height, so red is about 45 centimeters, or 1-1/2 feet high for the metric-challenged. In a mathematically pure system, such as a computer model, the intensity and wave height would drop off as a steady gradation from one color to the next. But the aforementioned irregularities cause some interesting wave physics of particular interest to the North Coast.

Note the red stream in the upper right forming out of the muddle and beelining straight across the North Pacific for the area around the Oregon/California border. Those seemingly chaotic waves in the propagation animation, instead of going about their random, merry ways, suddenly aligned their energies like a wave physics flash mob and aimed themselves right at Crescent City. I guess Crescent City is to tsunamis what a Midwestern trailer parks is to a tornado.

It wasn’t only Crescent City that got nailed. In Brookings, Oregon, just to the north, the harbor suffered severe damage as well. To the south, Santa Cruz marina was the setting for dramatic videos of un-moored, captainless boats smashing into each other with each tidal pulse in a floating demolition derby. When I got home and saw the Santa Cruz footage, I immediately searched online for info about the Berkeley Marina, since a friend and I co-own a funky, fixer-upper sailboat there. While I couldn’t find any official word, there were two Youtube videos that showed the boat looking intact. Someone went and checked more closely a few days later and reported that the craft appeared fine. (Follow-up: I was there on Friday and it was good as…well, good as it ever was.)

Meanwhile, a likely nuclear meltdown is happening in Japan, more rain and wind is forecast for the Northcoast, another marijuana ballot initiative has been announced for 2012, pounds of last year’s harvest are sitting in storage and the hopeful little sprouts are showing their first true leaves and reaching for the sun.

And it starts all over again.

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Cannabis seeds

By Mikal Jakubal

For some people it’s February 1st, for others March 1st and for others, Daylight Savings Time. Some people start their seeds by the phases of the moon or by astrological signs.

There is one school of thought that suggests that starting seeds later—around April 1st—will provide the same yields with less work, since the plants will catch up—in the longer late-spring days—to plants started months earlier. Then there are those who start their seeds whenever they happen to get back from their winter vacations.

Whenever you choose to do it, the process is similar. Select your seeds and place them between sheets of cloth or paper towels soaked in warm water on a plate. Place in a warm place—some people use a seedling heat pad—and check frequently to ensure that they don’t dry out.

This time of the year, the small talk of the town, the casual conversation starter among friends is, “started your seeds yet?” It is no different than what farmers in any agricultural society ask themselves at certain times of the year. It’s what this community does. The question is often followed by inquiries about strains, availability of seeds, how many are being started and so on. “I heard everyone wants O.G.” “Blue Dream is being overproduced, so it’s hard to sell.” “Know anyone with any high-CBD strains?” “I started in January because I’m doing an early dep.” And so on.

Well, okay, that’s not the only pot-related thing people are talking about. Many people still haven’t sold last year’s harvest yet, or still have a lot left to sell. Such a conflict: to face plummeting prices, a flooded and rapidly changing market and an uncertain future while sitting on pounds and pounds of pot…and then to be starting more seeds. That is the downside of living in an economy and culture where pot is “what this community does.” Elsewhere, if the market is not working for you, grow something else. But here, there is nothing else and no other jobs. So the planting begins again and somehow it will all work out.

I’ve been talking with people a lot lately about seeds and the future of the marijuana culture and economy here. I’ve also been pestering my main doc participants to endure just one more filming push this spring so we can include seed starting and transplanting in the movie. It’s clearly on my mind, because last night I had a minor nightmare about it! In my dream, I had filled tables full of plates, each full of rare pot seeds, soaking under bits of cloth. I’m not sure where my dream-world self got them, why I had so many or why they were so irreplaceable, but all that made it highly disturbing when I lifted the cloth coverings off and, one after another, found that the root tips had all dried out! This can easily happen in real life and it usually kills the newborn plant. The dream didn’t wake me, but was upsetting at the time. I don’t remember exactly what I ended up doing.

Sprouting cannabis seeds

Sleeping, I guess.

After one to five days on the plate, the seeds will crack and the little white root tip (“radical” in botanical terms) will emerge. They can and should be planted individually in pots at this stage. Each day the new root grows double or more in size, snaking to and fro, frantically searching for a substrate to penetrate in order to anchor the new plant and begin drawing nutrients. They can’t continue long this way before the seed exhausts its considerable reserves of energy and dies. Often, if left too long on the paper towels, the roots will puncture the paper, requiring considerable care to cut them out when planting. They also become susceptible to molds in this warm, damp environment.

This pre-sprouting method has a couple advantages. First is that it lets you gauge seed viability and saves planting dead seeds in a pot of soil for nothing. Any careful breeders or anyone who buys seeds will want to monitor viability closely. Pre-sprouting also allows more control over the environment when the seeds are most vulnerable. There are fewer pathogens and seed predators on a clean cloth soaked with clean water on a shelf in your house. The seeds are famously high in oils and nutrients, so mice are notorious for sneaking into greenhouses and carefully excavating every single seed in a flat the first night after they were planted. They are less interested in young, growing seedlings.

The next step, once the seeds have cracked, is planting them in a specially-prepared seed mix. Everyone has their own favorite, some store-bought, some homemade. But that’s another post.

One Good Year covered in Eureka Times-Standard

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(Note: this story was from a week and a half ago! I was originally going to add some commentary based on some feedback I got from various people, so I held off posting it for a day. Then, between shoots and a major veterinary emergency with one of my pets that distracted me for a week, I spaced-out that I hadn’t publicized the story. Duh. It’s what happens when I try to be director/producer/cinematographer/social media coordinator and everything else on top of trying to keep the rest of my life together.  Thanks to Donna Tam for making the trip all the way to Southern Humboldt.)

Spotlight on the marijuana industry: Local filmmaker working on a documentary to capture the spirit of the pot trade
Donna Tam/The Times-Standard
Posted: 11/09/2010 01:27:13 AM PST

Five young trimmers sit out on the deck, surrounded by buds, sunlight and the open air of Southern Humboldt.

The scene is set nicely for local filmmaker Mikal Jakubal, who is intent on capturing a slice of life within Humboldt County’s marijuana industry.

One trimmer, a seasoned hand who has a sunny disposition and no shoes on, talks as her fingers nimbly pluck buds and trim them with Fiskars, a brand of scissors.

She said she isn’t a pot smoker and had no position on the recently failed Proposition 19 — which aimed to legalize and regulate pot for recreational use — but she thinks the work is fun.

”We get to hang out in the sun, listen to rad music and hang out with cool people,” she said, with the camera rolling.

Jakubal said the trimmer — who does not live in California but travels to Humboldt for seasonal work — is a part of an industry spawned in Humboldt, just as much as the small pot farmers eking out a living or the big growers who are making plenty of money.

The story he hopes to tell with a documentary he has worked on since March is the underlying culture that attracted many of the older growers in the first place — going back to the land.

”It’s not about dope growing. It’s about what Southern Humboldt is about,” Jakubal said. “You can’t talk about it without talking about weed.”

In his film, Jakubal follows four growers throughout the course of a year.

One of the growers, a woman
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who referred to herself as “J,” said she was drawn to the Emerald Triangle during the 1970s because of its lifestyle, not its pot.

”I’m a Bay Area girl that migrated to the hills to raise a family and go back to the land,” she said. “We didn’t come to grow marijuana — I didn’t. It just happened.”

A single mom who raised her children in the area and now has her grandchildren growing up in the area, J is a medical marijuana patient as well. She chooses to smoke pot rather than take pharmaceuticals for her anxiety disorder because of the side effects that kind of medication has on her.

One of the themes of Jakubal’s film is the effect of Proposition 19 on the industry. He said what the film will best depict is how much doesn’t change, even with legalization front and center for the nation to watch.

J said she voted for Proposition 19 despite being wary of its lack of protection for small farmers. She said that ultimately, she’s glad it didn’t pass, but she very much would like to see a legitimate marijuana industry.

Both she and Jakubal agree that Prop. 19’s lack of success was not just because of some greedy pot growers but fear of the unknown.

J said she has watched the price of pot cut in half in the last 15 years. But there is fear that if big industry takes over marijuana, the plant will “lose some of its sacredness, its specialness.”

She said a lot of her friends are not happy that she is in a documentary. They are concerned the industry will be glorified or that it may not be safe for her to be so “out” about it.

J said she wanted to tell her story and help the world see that she is just a grandmother trying to keep her modest middle-class lifestyle and positively contribute to her community any way she can.

”I think the rest of the people in the world have a misconception of marijuana growers — that we’re a wild bunch, and we’re rich and we drive big trucks.”

Jakubal aims to have something produced by next winter, but that will depend on funding. Jakubal said he hopes that the chance for the outside world to access the Humboldt County grow scene in a manner more intimate than what the recent media attention has produced will attract funders.

”It’s such a unique, amazing place,” he said. “It’s this secret little subculture that no one gets to see.”

http://www.times-standard.com/ci_16562195?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com

Day Of The Living-Dead Marijuana

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By Mikal Jakubal

It's just a few brown leaves...

After yesterday’s tarantula in the trim scene photo, I thought I’d share these much more gruesome (to growers) images of pot-farm terror. Powdery mildew, mold and stretching buds are three end-of-season demons that rival thieves and law enforcement as the stuff of grower nightmares and B-grade slasher movie plots. Well, if anyone made B-grade slasher movies about growing weed.

The photo at right is Botrytis bud mold or stem mold. It kills the plant as it grows, feeding on the dead plant matter like the giant space amoeba in that old movie THE BLOB. I freakin’ loved that movie as a kid!

Mold first shows as brown leaves on the outside of the bud. This entire bud, including all the way to the bottom of the photo (above), is trashed. Compost. Once you cut into something like this, you find the stems rotten well beyond the surface indicators. If you catch it when you see one teeny, tiny brown leaflet, you can often save most of the bud. Within one or two more days at most, this entire bud would have been brown. It happens faster than the bite of a zombie leaves you undead.

Powdery mildew. No, that is not frosty with hash crystals, it's fungus.

Powdery mildew is caused by another, parasitic, fungus that feeds on the living plant juices like a vampire and spreads by wind-blown spores to infect other healthy leaves and plants. A wooden stake wouldn’t do much, but potassium bicarbonate or hydrogen peroxide foliar spray helps.

The plant pictured above was left untreated for far, far too long. Once it gets this bad, it is very hard to eliminate, especially this close to harvest.

Like one of those beanie caps with the little propeller on top.

This bud (right) was left on the plant well past optimal harvest time. Note how the tip has elongated into a central stalk circled by leaflets and calyxes. It’s the marijuana-plant equivalent of being put on the rack.

Growers call this “stretching” or “helicoptering” because of the way the leaflets protrude in alternating pairs like the blades of a helicopter. I’m a volunteer firefighter/EMT, so I usually consider helicopters a blessing, but they get a bad rap in this town.

Once this bud is harvested and dried, that tip will be cut off, leaving a little snipped off stump-end on the tip of the bud instead of a nice, round, groomed top. This sort of stretching takes place throughout the entire bud structure, decreasing the density and increasing difficulty in trimming. I’m told that leaving them on the plant this long also makes the smoke more “stoney” as opposed to giving a more “up” high had it been harvested earlier. (Opinions on this anyone?)

Leaving a bud on the plant this long also increases the risk of mold, as evidenced by the stretch-out tip on the moldy bud in the first photo.

Happy Day Of The Undead!

Trim scene trick or treat!

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Maybe it was after some “White Widow.”

(Caution, open this post carefully to avoid upsetting contents.)

Ah, so this is what the “trick” part of “trick or treat” means when you don’t give candy to the little goblins at the door. I thought it meant they’d egg your house or cover the trees in your yard with toilet paper. Must be the local Wiccan kids responsible for this one.

This hirsute fella wandered into a local trim scene today, seen here in a cardboard trimming tray. It’s Halloween and all, but the trimmer who first saw him was not amused, On the bright side, it could’ve been a werewolf or walking skeleton. Or a DEA agent.

And on a lighter Halloween note, some trim scene humor seasonal decoration.

The native tarantulas in Northern California are in the genus Aphonopelma—as if you really care about anything other than getting the damn thing out of the house—but I don’t know which species this is. They are rarely seen except in the fall when the males go out wandering in search of females, who usually live hidden in burrows. Last fall, I found two of these on the walls inside my house, which is the only time I’ve ever seen them. I don’t know why they thought they’d find mates here.

According to the California Poison Control System, the bites are painful (their fangs are HUGE), but don’t usually result in systemic poisoning symptoms. So, while not dangerous like a black widow, they’re just…creepy. Like the ones in my house, this one pictured today was captured and released way back in the property.

Of course, there are plenty more where that came from.
And they’re headed.
Your.
Way.

Bwaaaaaaahhhhhaaaaa haaaaaa haaaaa!

Rot-off Moon

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By Mikal Jakubal

If the full moon of two weeks ago was the “Ripoff Moon,” as my thieving neighbor put it, this dark moon has to be called “Rot-off Moon,” in dubious honor of the brown stem mold that is sweeping Northcoast pot gardens.

“Stem mold” or “bud mold,” as it’s alternately called, is a species of the fungus Botrytis. It is one of the many predictable pests of marijuana in damp climates and appears each fall at harvest. What makes it so vexing and anxiety-inducing is that it starts invisibly on the stems of the biggest buds, rotting them from the inside out.

Often, the first sign is a yellowed or wilted bud leaflet or two. Pulling the bud open reveals either brown slime or grey fuzz where green, crystal-coated calyxes, pistils and leaflets should be. Trying to cut the rot out is often futile, with each successive cut leading deeper and deeper into the bud structure until nothing is left but a disheartening pile of brown and green clippings destined for the compost pile.

Of the many crop-loss threats a small-scale cannabis farmer faces on the Northcoast, bud mold has become the most serious, far surpassing losses to law enforcement eradication efforts.

For many growers, this is the worst mold year they’ve ever experienced. The combination of a long, wet spring with rains persisting well into June, a relatively cool summer and an unseasonably heavy rain in September has provided an ideal climate for mold growth. The fact that everyone has doubled and tripled crop size this year means that a farmer’s limited time is spread thinner, with less time per plant to monitor and take preventative measures.

Once it starts, Botrytis can race through a crop, destroying most of the large buds in mere days. Since it forms mostly in large, maturing buds, the usual remedy for mold is immediate harvest of the surrounding healthy ones. But, what do you do when half of your crop—which this year is three times a large as you normally handle—shows signs of mold all at once?

This is the dilemma that many growers face at this very moment and there is some major freaking-out going on in Garberville. Stores are selling out of heaters, dehumidifiers and propane. I’ve spoken with many, many growers and only a very few are not having mold problems. It was even a topic of discussion on the popular Thank Jah It’s Friday radio program on KMUD radio this morning.

Throughout the hills, large piles of moldy buds are being tossed on the compost heap as growers race to get plants cut and dried before mold can consume their entire season’s work. I’ve heard of people putting large fans outside in their gardens to keep the air moving, though this is probably about as effective as a bucket brigade trying to make a river run uphill. Many people get up early and shake the dew off of each branch. Others cut large branches at once, hanging the whole thing indoors in a dry-room to be properly processed later. The best solution, for those who have the money, is to hire a large crew to do an accelerated harvest, converting your entire house into a drying shed.

Of my four documentary subjects, one harvested early and another is in the process of a slow, phased harvest. Neither had any significant mold. The other two, however think they might have as much as 30% crop loss. One of the two is also a meticulous breeder and she lost years of breeding work when carefully pollinated flowers rotted off the stem.

The accelerated harvest has pushed my ability to keep up with filming. Where I might have otherwise had weeks to show the harvest process, I’ve now had to run around to grab footage of plants being cut before they were gone. With mold running amok, no one is going to wait for me and my camera. Of course, the mold has also added a significant new level of tension to the story, temporarily backburnering concerns about the coming vote on Proposition 19 and the effects that might have. It’s hard to worry about something that might affect you next year—for better or worse—when your entire crop is melting before your eyes.

Farming of any kind is never predictable and pot-growing is no different. I wonder if a future, legalized cannabis industry will have crop-loss insurance available for bud mold?

Someone cut the lock!

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A friend who lives down the road and grows a small medical marijuana garden just called to tell me that last night at around 8pm, someone cut the lock on her gate. She assumes that they drove in, saw that the other resident was there in his cabin with the lights on and left. Oddly enough, the lock was just dummy-hooked. They didn’t have to cut it, but could have just unhooked it had they messed with it for a couple seconds. This indicates they came prepared to cut a lock, so there was clearly ill-intent.

This sort of thing adds to the tension around here this time of year. Lots of strangers come into town either with harvest work lined up already or in the hope of finding work. Others come here to scam and steal. This was someone who had cased the place already. She should get some motion-activated alarms, at minimum. Or a dog. If that happened to me, where I knew someone had clearly intended to rip me off, it’s hard to say I would not be tempted to arm myself in case they came back. It’s creepy when it happens to someone you know. I hope she at least has a sharp machete by the door.

So Busted!

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The rain on Saturday night saturated the buds and caused plants all over SoHum to snap unless the grower had them very well staked and tied. There are many ways to support plants and I hope to show some photos of them soon. This photo is what happens with no staking at all.

BUSTED!

Believe it or not, this plant will survive. I was at the grower’s place feeding her dog and discovered the fallen plants this morning. I’m sure most growers spent Sunday and Monday tying up broken plants and shaking water off the buds. Since my friend (a personal-use medical grower), is still out of town, I staked the plant up for her and splinted the broken stems, not the first time I’ve put my EMT skills to use on a plant.

When I checked later, after half a day in the sun, the leaves weren’t wilted, so the plant is likely to make a full recovery. Now the hope everywhere is that water-saturated buds don’t mold in the unseasonably cool, moist air.

Ripoff Moon

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By Mikal Jakubal
“The ripoff moon. That’s what my grandpa used to call it…the ripoff moon.”

Ripoff moon

“Yes,” I mumbled under my breath to my friend standing next to me, “he should know.” The speaker was, after all, the notorious ripoff son of said grandpa, himself a notorious ripoff. A friend and I were talking with him in front of my place, across the street from the junkyard and jumbled cluster of squalid hovels where the family lives.

He was referring to the full moon of late September. While still several days away, it is already bright enough to permit movement at night without a flashlight. This is the most dangerous and risky time for growers. The entire year’s work is riding on the hope that the next two to five weeks will go well. While the marijuana crop is not at peak harvest quality, it is mature enough to be smokable, salable and, unfortunately, stealable. By next month, with harvest in full swing, each farm will be abuzz with workers busily cutting, hanging and trimming the marijuana. But now, it is still quiet, with most growers doing the guarding themselves.

Anywhere you find an abundance of illicit wealth you will find an abundance of thieves. Some are locals—such as the family across the street from me—who make their living ripping off others’ marijuana harvest. In other cases, low-lifes come here from elsewhere with the intent of reaping what others have grown. Thieves in pot country are considered the lowest of the low, the scummiest of the scum, probably even lower on the totem pole of social respect than snitches.

Most growers I know rely on the remoteness of their homesteads—security through obscurity—for protection against ripoffs. Many also have dogs and simple security systems such as motion-activated lights or alarms to alert them to intruders. All have fences to protect the marijuana and the rest of their garden from deer. One grower I know has a large greenhouse with chicken wire air-nailed and battened to the inside of the stud framing, adding an additional layer of difficulty to any attempted break-in.

Almost ready…

The real fear of most pot farmers I know is what is generically referred to as “armed home invasion,” where there is a forcible break-in involving weapons and a direct confrontation. In most cases, ripoffs will flee the garden if they think they have been seen. They are only there for an easy heist that isn’t worth the risk of a confrontation with an angry grower who may be armed or at least recognize them if they’re local. In an armed home invasion, the thieves are more determined, aggressive and unpredictable.

I haven’t seen any law enforcement statistics on this, but my overall impression is that these sort of violent conflicts have increased in the last half-dozen years. The actual numbers are also likely far higher than any official statistics, since many crimes go unreported due to the pirate nature of the industry. I should note that the fact that marijuana is becoming mainstream and tolerated might mean that the apparent increase is actually just an increase in reporting, now that busting hippies for a few plants is no longer a law-enforcement priority in Humboldt County or most of California.

Growers I know have responded to this perceived threat in a number of ways, mostly involving more security devices, fences, dogs and, unfortunately, guns. Many sleep in or near their pot patch this time of the year. While I have yet to talk to anyone who says that pot is worth killing anyone over or dying for, those who carry weapons usually phrase it as a matter of self-defense against an armed intruder. While they say they wouldn’t kill someone for ripping off their marijuana plants, they might shoot back—or shoot first—if the intruder points a gun at them.

A couple days ago, I talked to someone who lives down the same paved road I live on about his situation. He is not far off the road and only has a deer fence for protection. He has to leave to work elsewhere during the day. The patch is in his large vegetable garden, eighty feet from the house and too far to hear an intruder cutting plants while he is sleeping at night. He says he plans to put up motion-activated alarms soon [dude, do it now!], but in the meantime, he describes his situation like this:

“Every morning I get up and go down to the garden first thing to see if my marijuana is still there. Every evening when I get back from work I go down to see if it’s still there. So far it has been. Tomorrow it may all be gone. I could lose the entire year’s crop and the majority of my year’s income in a few minutes when my back is turned, but I can’t let it run my life. I have work to do in the day, I have to sleep at night and I don’t have anyone else here to guard it for me. You can’t be attached to an outcome in a situation like this. It’s like this every frickin’ year, so I’ve learned to accept that I might get nothing and then be grateful for whatever harvest I do get.”

While unarmed, my neighbor does keep a big, sharp machete by the door in case he has to go out at night and confront someone, noting, finally, “I always sleep a little easier once this full moon is past.”