Farmers Market Season
The summer season has officially begun, even though it is still May. 
The girls have started growing while the garden is being prepared to be their long-term home. Multi-colored wildflowers are sprinkled across the meadows and the days grow longer … summer is in the air. Thoughts turn to warm afternoons and lazy evenings after a hard day’s work.
It also is the season of parties and festivals and gatherings of the various clans. The kick off up here in northern Mendocino County was the Farmers Market at Healing Harvest Farms/AREA 101 in Laytonville last Saturday afternoon. There must have been almost 50 vendors this time, and like all things cannabis these days, it grows larger and more organized with each event. We are blessed with late spring rains this season, after too many years of drought, so no one thought to complain when a little drizzle greeted us in the morning as vendors set up shop and the market came to life.
Considering how busy we have all been as farmers getting in our crops, as well as being concerned citizens doing political activism to save our county, it seems we only get to see one another at events or meetings. It was a treat to visit with Casey O’Neill of Happy Day Farms along with other local farmer friends and actually get a chance to share tales of winter woes and wonders. We used to talk almost exclusively about growing tips and what the cops were up to in the neighborhood, but now it is primarily local politics. Yes, we are still mostly hippies at heart, but hippies care about their community, too. Lots.
It was a mellow day at the market, with visitors drifting into our booth to sample buds from Swami Select and maybe buy a T-shirt or hoodie. We met people from way down in Southern California as well as people from as far north as Spokane, Washington and as far south as Florida who came all the way to Mendocino County for this event. I can’t blame them – what an opportunity to be rubbing shoulders with some of the best growers in the area. As long as you have a registered doctor’s recommendation and join the Healing Harvest Farms collective there at AREA 101, you can take home some of the finest herb in the world. And meet the farmers who grew it. That’s worth the drive, I’d say.
A highlight for me is sampling some of the topicals and edibles, since I don’t get to very many dispensaries to view what’s out there. What choice! Such good quality! I am in love with Jimmy Cracked Corn – it is delicious and made by Jimmy, of course, who is one of the sweetest guys on earth.
Big Daddy himself (of Big Daddy Edibles) was there passing out samples, and along with lots of tasty treats he gave us this humungous cupcake to take home and enjoy. It was some sort of lemon flavor with thick sugar icing and looked very tempting, but on close inspection we discovered that the entire cupcake was over 1000 mg of cannabis. We cut it into tiny slivers that came out to 64 mg each – still about double of what I usually take if I want to sleep well or not feel aches and pains. Hopefully patients realize not to eat the whole thing, although if someone is seriously ill they could handle lots more for healing purposes.
Around 5:00 the crowd thinned out as the the sky started to grow very grey. No one complained a bit when the wind came up and sprinkles began to fall. It was time to pack up and go home to enjoy the lovely warm late spring rain, a herald of a propitious summer. We saw Tim Blake upon departure – he’d been running around so fast all day we hadn’t even seen him. He should be proud of this sweet Farmers Market which as developed over the years at AREA 101, also the home of the Emerald Cup and so much more. But that’s a whole other story…
