Hemp Among the Stumps (standard:action, 2173 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Sep 02 2009	Views/Reads: 3433/2189	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
In 1992 this story was science fiction, but not today. Welcome to the 21st Century with Hempfest.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

the felled trees could be lopped and skidded down to the stream.  That 
was thirty years ago.  The spawning beds were muddy for years, and 
generations of fish aborted. Today, you wouldn't want to disturb the 
nests in that stream-bed.  Not with six billion hungry people -- and 
growing. 

The task was indeed challenging. 

How could we begin to clean up ground between the stumps?  We'd have to
test the soil and adjust its chemistry -- keeping in mind the cost at 
every step.  Would the threadlike root system of hemp take hold in this 
ground? How effectively would it anchor the soil?  We had a lot of 
research ahead of us. 

The incentive wasn't in the money, of course, but in the fringe
benefits.  Of course, the money would be nice if we succeeded, but it 
would be cozy to open a little country club here, where the nearest car 
would have to be parked two miles away.  We could entertain all kinds 
of fun- loving and intellectual guests. 

I'll never forget how that struck the Park Department Supervisor. 

"If they can make it two miles back to their cars, they're not going to
be stoned by the time they get there!" 

Yes, definitely the fringe benefits.  Of course, we had to make
provisions for safety, and for help in case someone gets hurt.  A lot 
of little bugs had to be ironed out first -- but all research is like 
that. 

Seven months later, we returned. 

It was a bitch lugging all that junk up to the clear-cut hillside, but
we would be here all summer.  With the visiting musicians.  At least we 
could have music to spur us on.  It took us hours to unload it all.  We 
helped Jim to build the shelter, pole by pole, and fell exhausted onto 
the sleeping mat.  It wasn't quite level.  We'd have to do something 
about that.  We'd have to do a lot of things.  We slept. 

This time, Rob wasn't with us.  Amanda was.  Her documentary would be
the showpiece of Seattle's next International Film Festival.  With Rob 
cutting the tapes and the team back in Seattle to manage the business, 
legal and accounting end, we were consciously and deliberately 
initiating a new industry in the state. 

We had been planning and collecting for this venture over the last six
months.  It was chilly and threatening to rain again.  Our first 
priority was to secure the tent and erect "Atlas' Daughter".  That was 
a pet name for our little stove, the bright-burning Pleiad who consumed 
wet straw, twigs, and pine needles.  She converted forest waste into 
clean heat and boiling water.  At least we could wash.  Tomorrow, after 
breakfast, we would set up the hot tub.  Who knows when our guests 
would show up with their instruments.  The countryside was in for a 
real rock concert -- where happy-high musicians could blast away at 
peak volume without fear of deafening anyone.  The ragged stumps would 
damp out their sound, so as not to upset the forest animals overly 
much.  Unless deer dig rock. 

For the next four months, this would be home. 

Everything was with us so far.  The cancer clinic at Swedish Hospital
had contracted for our entire harvest.  Hundreds of patients were 
waiting for legal relief from their chemotherapy -- one of the 
best-known medical uses for marijuana.  In effect, this financed the 
product.  Our donation was credited to our corporation's state taxes 
for the next five years. That way, nobody came out on the losing end. 

Who could ask for greater meaning in life: to do what's fun in the sun
and to know that hundreds of people are better off for it.  But then, I 
was a boy scout once, and something may have rubbed off. 

By the end of that first week, we were joined by two ocarina players
from Kansas City.  I guess word had gotten around.  We spent the good 
days, a few hours at a time, removing scrub from between stumps and 
collecting it for the stove.  I took samples of soil and leaf mold for 
analysis. 

Before the first heavy rains, we soaked the soil with liquid fertilizer
to prepare it for a crop.  By the end of the week, it would be leached 
away and we could begin seeding -- if the weather promised to let us. 

There were hundreds of little details like this to keep us busy.  And
did we have fun doing it!  We worked in pairs, conversing, telling 
stories, talking music.  The nights were too short.  So were the days. 

Suddenly, gracious fronds were waving over our heads, for an acre in
every direction.  It was already August and Mary Jane's scent was 
intoxicating.  I heard on the grapevine that Chanel had already 
patented the scent, but you can never tell about rumors.  Before 
harvest even began, Rob had signed contracts with six bands and had 
recordings of dozens of sessions -- enough to keep him busy creating 
promotional tapes all winter. 

Amanda had her documentary on videotape and I had prepared three new
papers for presentation at the next Hemp Congress. 

Here it was, harvest time.  And our Israeli advisor arrived -- right on
schedule.  His helicopter unloaded the decorticators and root trimmers 
that have become standard equipment all over Holland and Eastern 
Europe. Half a dozen people could harvest an acre in 20 minutes. It was 
an ideal solution: hand labor working with the "Best Available 
Technology" --  with "Available" meaning you can buy it off the shelf, 
you can count on it and it works. 

Six of us harvested the first acre in 33 minutes and 8 seconds.  Not
exactly a record, but then we were amateurs. 

"Chaim," I asked him, "how did you come to invent these things?"  I held
up the device for decapitating buds. 

The answer wasn't what I was expecting.  "I saw this movie last year
where this guy had hands like scissors and it came to me -- just like 
that -- somebody's going to need tools like that when grass goes legal. 
 I put two and two together and incorporated.  The world is my market.  
Here, let me show you how to speed it up to get finished quicker, in 
case you have to go take a pee."  I didn't even realize the thing had 
an overdrive. 

The summer had already been more profitable than could have been
imagined.  Our guests were delighted to "contribute to our favorite 
charity" instead of paying cash, as they had anticipated.  That took a 
lot of pressure off them.  It was more fun that way, I think. 

From another movie (it was "Zorba the Greek"), Chaim taught us to string
a wire down the steep slope.  We loaded the slings with headless, 
rootless hemp stalks and gravity slid our commercial products right 
into the storage shed.  All we needed now were two sunny days. 

And they came.  Together with the blimps.  We had bundled up sheaves of
hemp stalks for the alcohol plant, with a sling to snag the skyhook on 
each one.  Within the hour, tons of pulp were at the mill.  Once again, 
this was old technology put to a new use. 

When the project was over, Rob and I had to walk out.  Amanda went by
blimp.  Everything was packed up, ready for use next year.  We went 
home to count our winnings.  Maybe next year we could use pack horses. 

Five years have gone by since then ... seems like five minutes.  Time
flies when you're having fun.  And getting things done.  And loving 
everything you're doing.  And learning to meet the challenge of a steep 
slope, like the huntsmen and woodsmen of thirty years ago.  Feeling the 
satisfaction in your heart when your harvest comes in. 

Washington State boasted of having over three hundred hemp farms now. 
Forests of cannabis and kenaf towered over millions of idle stumps 
scattered throughout the Olympic Mountains and the Cascades.  Co-ops 
were springing up here and there.  One supplied a pulp mill.  Several 
others supplied the crop to processing plants that made alcohol for 
fuel.  The abandoned old Swedish Oil Mill was back in action, grinding 
out edible oils and hemp seed cake.  Legislation was already in the 
State Senate to approve incorporation of new communities in what was 
once considered wasteland. 

Best of all, by trimming the root-ball of each plant with Chaim's
device, the soil integrity had improved 200 per cent.  The first stumps 
had already been pulled, and the soil was stable.  Mission 
accomplished. 

Then, of course, there was the music.  We logged up at least 3 "new
sounds", a "Concerto for Ocarina"  and awards for Best Rock Video.  
Amanda's documentary shows at the Omnidome -- all in all, not too bad.  
It's been fun counting the profits. 

Seattle, September 1, 2009 - Gerald X. Diamond - All rights reserved 


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