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On July 1, recreational weed became legal in Oregon. One of the things that means is that everyone can now legally grow up to four marijuana plants. Here at Willamette Week, we were so excited that we decided to have an old-fashioned office grow-off. All of our plants started the same size and they are all the P-91 strain, but each department elected to grow its plants in different ways.
See previous installments of our weed growing journey here.
Candis spend her last night on earth cold and wet.
I found her about 6:30 am, bent over outside her little house, soaked and chilled by the night's short, thick bursts of rain. It would have been so easy for her caretakers to bring her back into the house, to allow her to spend her last hours alive in the relative warmth and comfort of the little plastic tent that we built expressly for this purpose, but they simply did not care enough.
Over the past few weeks they'd done this a few times, neglected to bring her out of the house during the day to get a little fresh air and some sunshine, and, if they did remember that, neglected to bring her back inside so that she would stop turning purple from the chill.
You can't blame them, they are only interns. And not even the interns who knew Candis back when she was a spry young sampling. That was Allie. Allie, I think, truly loved Candis. Allie named her. Allie cared.
The two guys that left Candis out in the cold and rain, they did not love her. They're just some dudes who showed up here to write about Insane Clown Posse and were told it was their job to climb a rickety wooden ladder a couple times a day to take care of a plant on the roof. She was just a chore to them. Whenever I would inquire about her well-being, the paler one we make the sign of a Ninja Turtle, which I took to mean she was "radical." That one made up a story about a dentist appointment to get out of the morning's grim work; the taller one with a mustache simply no-called, no-showed.
I thought they might want to be there, but they did not.
They abandoned her in the end, to the cold, and the rain, and finally to the scissors.
My scissors.
Cutting Candis down fell to me. I wanted to do it right, so I arrived before dawn, before her roots would suck up the embittering nutrients they needed for a day's growth. Because there would be no growth today. Today, by daylight, Candis would be a stump.
I didn't wear gloves. Did I mention that? I probably should have worn gloves.
It's about 8 am and I'm… Not exactly buzzed, but, uh…it's weird.
That's what they call it. A good term. It's a high very few people have experienced, I suppose. Mild, warm on the front of the face and cold on the sides, like a dram of brandy by the fire in a ski lodge.
Poor Candis. Her purple color is beautiful, but it comes from misery.
Soon you will be warm, Candis. As soon as the fluid finishes dripping from your trunk and stems, and your flowers become dry and brittle, we will take you into the warm oven of a vaporizer and allow it to milk the powerful tonic you spent the last four months making for us.
Good night, sweet Candis.
Willamette Week