Original source seeds from the 70's: Yes I have some

[Big Sur]

I also have some interesting Oaxacan-Jamaica cross seeds that I will give a go to this year as well at another grow site. Unless I get some land race south India ganja seeds from Kerala, and then well... you may never hear from me again. Ganja remains the strongest weed I have EVER smoked, bar none. That was trippy stuff. Pre-dates all the Amsterdam and Emerald Triangle crosses by many decades, if not centuries.

I will be so high on Ganja, I will not have a need or care in the world.

 

[Big Sur]

The Lebbies seem to be of 2 phenos so far. A tall and a short type. The leaf tips seem to burn and curl for some reason on some as well, but not on others. Both the Swiss and RSC Leb strains seem to be growing and looking the same. The Durbans are all one pheno, and are growing like typical sativas. They are already beginning to reek at only a foot tall.

 

[Conradino23]

The annoying thing about the beans from RSC was a number of dwarfy phenos, but if they just reproduced it most likely natural selection was too hard to improve with one pollination. Otherwise it looks like a good strain although the only thing I have now on my hands is a nice-looking male

 

[Big Sur]

The annoying thing about the beans from RSC was a number of dwarfy phenos, but if they just reproduced it most likely natural selection was too hard to improve with one pollination. Otherwise it looks like a good strain although the only thing I have now on my hands is a nice-looking male

Yes, I see the RSC dwarfy pheno thing in the Lebbies. The Swiss Lebbies and one RSC Lebbie is tall (the only male, actually), the rest of the RSC Lebbies are short girls. With only one male in the RSC lot, I think they are feminized as well. So I will cross a tall Swiss babe with the tall RSC stud and leave the shrimpy shorties to flower. The leaf burning has ended on the Lebbies, and they are pushing out bug fat leaves now. I have some small Lebby flowers dried that I snipped out of the sexed Lebby cuttings to smoke tomorrow. Cannot wait to see what they will be like.

 

[Big Sur]

As for the Durban Poison. Seems that there is no Durban Poison in Durban, ZA any more. At least that is what some friends told me that are from there anyway. My sexed female Durbans want to bloom already, so they may be autos, which is recessive. The unsexed cuttings just refuse to bloom even after 3 weeks of 12/12 light. They are all fully rooted and potted up now. Seems weird. I planted some odd Durban cross beans that I got here in seeded weed, but only 2 survived, and they were both males. So I yanked them, not knowing the genetics in them. Though they looked like 'normal' weed plants and they bloomed in 10 days under 12/12 light. I smoked the small flower buds that I snipped from the DP sexed female cuttings, and WHAM! Its definitely Durban Poison. I am still stoned 3 hours later.

 

[Conradino23]

Yes, I see the RSC dwarfy pheno thing in the Lebbies. The Swiss Lebbies and one RSC Lebbie is tall (the only male, actually), the rest of the RSC Lebbies are short girls. With only one male in the RSC lot, I think they are feminized as well. So I will cross a tall Swiss babe with the tall RSC stud and leave the shrimpy shorties to flower. The leaf burning has ended on the Lebbies, and they are pushing out bug fat leaves now. I have some small Lebby flowers dried that I snipped out of the sexed Lebby cuttings to smoke tomorrow. Cannot wait to see what they will be like.

They're definitely regular. I saw a pollination report on UK420. I'm stillthinking if I should keep this male for pollen or hunt next year. It sure looks nice, but seems to have rather sparse sacks. Also nothing impressive in the smell department. I still have two more plants going full season, I hope they're both females, so I can sample the strain at least.

 

[Big Sur]

They're definitely regular. I saw a pollination report on UK420. I'm stillthinking if I should keep this male for pollen or hunt next year. It sure looks nice, but seems to have rather sparse sacks. Also nothing impressive in the smell department. I still have two more plants going full season, I hope they're both females, so I can sample the strain at least.

None of my Lebs have much in the odor department. Just the way they are I guess. The Durbans however? They absolutely reek already! The terpenes are a wafting from those plants.

Reading your Ken Kesey sig... my ex in Southern Oregon now owns what was once the Mu Farm, a commune that raised goats and milked them to make ice cream to sell in Eugene. Ken and the Merry Pranksters tripped there and danced to the music of the Warlocks (later renamed the Grateful Dead). Ken's son has a essay on the Mu Farm, his father and the Pranksters online someplace. The barn is still a relic to those days. The milking parlor is still painted high gloss purple with yellow stars. The barn wiring had its own power pole and was rigged with a lot of 220 V high amp boxes. I never figured out why until I read about the live music gigs there, and then it made sense. Every few months someone would come by that place and reminisce about the commune days, and tell stories about the topless women and parties and hippie culture. Ken Kesey's ranch was north of there up the Territorial Highway southwest of Eugene. I was also living in Monterey when Ken and the gang showed up in Further, the bus they rode around in, and they parked at Asilomar where the Unitarian Church convention was. They got really stoned and whipped the bus with kelp from the beach and sang, "Kelp, I need somebody!" to the beat of the Beatles song, Help! They were asked to leave the convention, but they stuck around. We were members of that church there in Monterey then. The minister was telling us to burn our draft cards. I was not old enough to have one then.

Trippy times... for a guy that only wrote 2 books, he was (and still is) a fixture in Oregon and NorCal. Sometimes a Great Notion was filmed a stone's throw from the old Mu Farm as well. Right where the book was set. Though the book is a mishmash of places, and Ken messes with your head when it comes to the actual geography there. My motto: Never give a inch!

 

[Weaselcracker]

Thanks as always for the stories BigSur. I love that stuff. Cool how we all intersect I small ways and bump into some elements of the same people and situations in life . Btw- Kesey wrote a lot more than two books. I've read five but I think he has more than that.

 

[Big Sur]

You are right, I meant to say 2 best selling books. Though they are both iconic now, after being made into films. Ken liked the movie Sometimes a Great Notion, and Paul Newman stuck to the plot. The movie One Flew over the Couckoo's Nest was a different matter entirely. Ken hated the way that they wrote the screenplay and sued the movie's producers (including Michael Douglas) in part because it wasn't shown from Chief Bromden's perspective, as it was in the book and in the plays that I saw of it. That suit was settled and Ken was paid off. They snubbed Ken at the Academy Awards program that year, even though the movie swept the top 5 Oscars.

 

[Big Sur]

So, the Lebanese land races? Several advantage of sexing plants early by taking cuttings and putting them into a home made bubble cloner is that 1) you can determine the sex of the plants, 2) you can start clones with the same cuttings , and 3) you can sample the goods when they pop flowers. Just a tiny taste, but usually more than enough for one hit. So I dried the flower cuttings from the Lebbie girls and took a hit tonight and WHAM! I mean a SpongeBob mind altering instant high. Head rush high like Cinex but with upper body rushes. Psychedelic weed man! Pass the joint! Wow. As soon as I tasted it I was reminded of Red Leb hash. These are the real deal. I had to take a hit of high CBD Harle Tsu to take the intensity off of it. I, ah, wow. OK, so...

And now coming off the roller coaster a bit... woah, another head rush coming... I am impressed. My brother is going to grow these out this year. He has a better climate and warmer nights in the Valley than I have up here in the Cascades. I will focus on the Durbans and retain one male Lebby for seeding the Lebbies. Its going to be one very stony Christmas this year. I should enter this shit into the Cannabis Cup.

 

[Big Sur]

Then of course there is the Durban Poison. I sampled that yesterday morning, and it was the Durban Poison high that I love. Uplifting, no rushes, no munchies, speedy, no need for coffee, get you going in the morning weed. Sativa at its best. It always comes on slow and long, and I always wonder if I should smoke another hit right when I realize that I do not need to. But I WANT to. So I usually do. Also really really good stuff. Between this stuff and the Lebby strains, we are going to be really high come Christmas time here this year. Who needs Amsterdam crosses? Land races pure and simple. Durban Poison, a purist's cerebral sativa from South Africa. Lebanese from the Bekka Valley, an iconic classic full body mind altering indica. I better clone and grow more Durban or I will not have the ability to plant the south Indian Ganja next year. Holy fuck!

 

[Conradino23]

None of my Lebs have much in the odor department. Just the way they are I guess. The Durbans however? They absolutely reek already! The terpenes are a wafting from those plants.

Reading your Ken Kesey sig... my ex in Southern Oregon now owns what was once the Mu Farm, a commune that raised goats and milked them to make ice cream to sell in Eugene. Ken and the Merry Pranksters tripped there and danced to the music of the Warlocks (later renamed the Grateful Dead). Ken's son has a essay on the Mu Farm, his father and the Pranksters online someplace. The barn is still a relic to those days. The milking parlor is still painted high gloss purple with yellow stars. The barn wiring had its own power pole and was rigged with a lot of 220 V high amp boxes. I never figured out why until I read about the live music gigs there, and then it made sense. Every few months someone would come by that place and reminisce about the commune days, and tell stories about the topless women and parties and hippie culture. Ken Kesey's ranch was north of there up the Territorial Highway southwest of Eugene. I was also living in Monterey when Ken and the gang showed up in Further, the bus they rode around in, and they parked at Asilomar where the Unitarian Church convention was. They got really stoned and whipped the bus with kelp from the beach and sang, "Kelp, I need somebody!" to the beat of the Beatles song, Help! They were asked to leave the convention, but they stuck around. We were members of that church there in Monterey then. The minister was telling us to burn our draft cards. I was not old enough to have one then.

Trippy times... for a guy that only wrote 2 books, he was (and still is) a fixture in Oregon and NorCal. Sometimes a Great Notion was filmed a stone's throw from the old Mu Farm as well. Right where the book was set. Though the book is a mishmash of places, and Ken messes with your head when it comes to the actual geography there. My motto: Never give a inch!

That's very cool, man. In retrospective I have to say it was Kesey and Aldous Huxley who got their claws into my young soul and turned me onto psychedelic counterculture when I was 15-16. "One Flew..." was indeed a book that did me in. "Wow, how can you write like that?" I remember thinking. I was really astonished back then. In the end I prefer "Sometimes A..." over his debut due to complexity and experimental narration, but it was the first one that really open my head no doubt about it. He really never wrote on acid although many think so and there's a whole passage in "One Flew" which was written on a peyote trip, but many of his insights come from working in psychiatric hospital in Menlo Park by night when he doses himself regularly. I'd like to see this farm, I know the Furthuuur is still there.

 

[Big Sur]

They restored Further through a fundraiser a few years ago. Zane, Ken's son, still lives on the farm near Eugene where it resides, a 1939 International bus. You can read about the early daze of Further, Ken and the gang in Tom Wolfe's book, The Electric Koolaid Acid Test.

I was into SciFi myself, but also Hunter S Thompson, Kesey, and Tom Robbins (Another Roadside Attraction). We lived the counter culture in NorCal though, so it was just preaching to the choir for us. We saw the Doobies, the Dead, the Airplane/Starship, Santana and countless other bands all the time there. The Allman Bros played at the River Inn in Big Sur a lot. I preferred the bands from England, and went to see The Kinks, The Who, and the Stones whenever I could. My brother was also into Spirit, a band from LA that was really good. A bunch of my friends were into tripping at Yes concerts. I used to go to the Big Sur Folk festivals, and see Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, etc. We lived in Monterey during the one and only Monterey Pop Festival. Well, I guess they are revising that this year? No need to go to the Monterey Fairgrounds, just opened the windows to hear Jimmy Hendrix jamming on his guitar, or Janis Joplin screaming into the mike. It was LOUD! Big Sur was the mecca of the hippie movement. Places like Santa Cruz, Telegraph Ave in Berkeley and the Haight district in SF were all hippie havens. And a lot of other places as well, like Eugene, Laurel Cyn in LA, Colorado, and up state New York.

 

[lazyfish]

FU*K you were at Montery? Man I missed out on some times!

 

[Big Sur]

FU*K you were at Montery? Man I missed out on some times!

I was living in Monterey then yes, and I was at Monterey. I did not go inside the pop festival, as we lived just 2 miles from the fairgrounds in the same canyon, and the noise traveled right to the house good and loud. Hendrix, The Who, Canned Heat, yadda yadda. Years later I went to another Yellow Dog concert at the same Monterey Fairgrounds and Wavey Gravey was telling stories about Woodstock between sets by Canned Heat and Jeff Beck. The most notable concert that I was at was the Who-Dead concert in Oakland in 1976. We were maybe 20 feet from the stage. I was deaf for 3 days after that.

I preferred the Big Sur Folk festivals though, and the smaller venues in Monterey, Big Sur and Santa Cruz. The Tubes put on the best live performance of anyone. It was a psychedelic trip without needing to take any acid. Niel Young used to play with Crazy Horse all the time at The Old Sash Mill in Santa Cruz. Lots of local bands like the Doobie Brothers played Monterey a lot, as did a whole slew of bands like The Fab T-birds, Greg Kihn, The Kinks, and The Clash. Some top bands played in some really small places, like the Barn at the Mission Ranch. We were spoiled with good weed, and spoiled with good music, and spoiled with the area, and it was cheap to live there then. *Sigh* No longer. I could never afford to move back there now.

 

[overlord]

I was living in Monterey then yes, and I was at Monterey. I did not go inside the pop festival, as we lived just 2 miles from the fairgrounds in the same canyon, and the noise traveled right to the house good and loud. Hendrix, The Who, Canned Heat, yadda yadda. Years later I went to another Yellow Dog concert at the same Monterey Fairgrounds and Wavey Gravey was telling stories about Woodstock between sets by Canned Heat and Jeff Beck. The most notable concert that I was at was the Who-Dead concert in Oakland in 1976. We were maybe 20 feet from the stage. I was deaf for 3 days after that.

I preferred the Big Sur Folk festivals though, and the smaller venues in Monterey, Big Sur and Santa Cruz. The Tubes put on the best live performance of anyone. It was a psychedelic trip without needing to take any acid. Niel Young used to play with Crazy Horse all the time at The Old Sash Mill in Santa Cruz. Lots of local bands like the Doobie Brothers played Monterey a lot, as did a whole slew of bands like The Fab T-birds, Greg Kihn, The Kinks, and The Clash. Some top bands played in some really small places, like the Barn at the Mission Ranch. We were spoiled with good weed, and spoiled with good music, and spoiled with the area, and it was cheap to live there then. *Sigh* No longer. I could never afford to move back there now.

I enjoy your stories and trips down memory lane.

 

[Big Sur]

We fell into it all in 1966 when we moved to Monterey. Little did we know that we were staging ourselves to be at the center of the Summer of Love. The flip side was that we were also next door to Ft Ord, then the west coast basic training camp for the Army as well as the home of the 7th Division supporting South Korea. Ft Ord was dealing with wars on two fronts in Asia and the Cold War in Europe. We were also near the local anti-war movements at UC Berkeley and SF State. Never mind the ongoing civil rights protests and movements going on in the 60s. Big Sur became the mecca for hippies, for whatever reason. They say that Esalen is where the so-called human potential movement started. Others say that it was Jack Kerouac's novel, Big Sur. Others say that it was Ken Kesey, Alan Watts, John Lilly and Stanislav Grof that were in residence there. But there was not much at Eselen in the 1960s. Nor was there ever much in or around Big Sur to support the throngs of people going there. In the late 60's there were always a hundred thumbs out for rides to Big Sur along Highway 1 between Monterey and Carmel. Hippies were everywhere. Usually they wound up heading south along Highway 1/101 to LA, or heading north along Highway 1/101 to SF or Berkeley.

From my perspective Big Sur was a transient place for Hippies, as was Monterey, Santa Cruz and Morro Bay. The real hippie centers in NorCal were on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley and the Haight in SF. I recall watching a group of hippies playing football in People's Park in Berkeley once. I was stoned, as usual. They were tripping on some psychedelic. It was a slow motion game with very weird actions by the players. At that time in the early 1970s, I was hanging out a lot with friends in their leather sandal shop on Telegraph Ave. They were from upstate New York, and they were at Woodstock and all the major hippie events in the Northeast. They were my mentors then, being older than I was. It was an interesting education. I also went to Esalen several times to stay and study with some interesting characters, like Will Schultz. Esalen had a scholarship program for students to take workshops there. I worked in the kitchen or at the baths between workshop sessions. I had many peak experiences there. Much later I developed a workshop there for people with ADD/ADHD like myself with a woman working on her PhD at Stanford. But it is different there now. The original baths on the cliff were all washed out in a flood one year, and there have been several wildfires there over the years.

This year you cannot get to Esalen from the north or south on Highway 1. Just north of the Monterey Co. line there was a HUGE landslide a half mile long that has closed the road. It may be years before they re-open that section of road (it is the largest landslide in CA history). In Big Sur at Pfeiffer Cyn the bridge gave out in the floods. CalTrans is replacing the bridge, but it will be months before that re-opens. Meanwhile Big Sur is cut in two. You can get to the stranded locations between the land slide and bridge wash out from Jolon Road, but that is a long trek through Ft Hunter Legget and a mean set of switchbacks descending to the coast road. The same sections of Highway 1 have been closed many times before now for the same reasons though. Highway 1 is constantly hit with floods and wildfires. Last summer the fires raged through there, and this winter the floods ravaged the area. One guy in Polo Colorado said, "First it was the fire, then the floods, and now what is coming? A great famine?" Polo Colorado was hit hard by the fire last summer and Polo Colorado Rd became a torrential river this winter. Polo Colorado is a canyon just north of Big Sur, inland from Rocky Point restaurant where I worked once as a chef.

 

[Graytail]

Lots of local bands like the Doobie Brothers played Monterey a lot, as did a whole slew of bands like The Fab T-birds, Greg Kihn, The Kinks, and The Clash. Some top bands played in some really small places, like the Barn at the Mission Ranch. We were spoiled with good weed, and spoiled with good music, and spoiled with the area, and it was cheap to live there then. *Sigh* No longer. I could never afford to move back there now.

I posted some Greg Kihn for you on Fishcake's thread.

Fish Cake's Tunes & Yours Too - If You Want To Join In

 

[Big Sur]

I posted some Greg Kihn for you on Fishcake's thread.

Fish Cake's Tunes & Yours Too - If You Want To Join In

Thanks. I saw Greg several times in the late 70s/early 80s at a very small venue in Carmel, the barn at Mission Ranch. Later when I was in the SF Bay area he became a DJ on KFOX radio and played a few gigs over the years in places like Campbell. I left the SF bay area after I was canned by my large high tech company in 2004. Greg was at KFOX until 2012 when he was canned there. I heard him up here recently as a DJ on the radio in Portland. He also has a new album out this year. This summer he is on the road again on tour.

 

[Big Sur]

An update on this year's grow. The Durban girls are already blooming. I was thinking that these were autos, but it makes no sense. So I dug up a lot more research on Durban land races and as it turns out, they have wildly variable blooming times and flower lengths. For that reason (as the story goes) Ed Rosenthal brought them back from South Africa (ZA) himself and worked them here in the US for several generations, trying to stabilize the strains. Ed then gave some of his seeds to Mel Franks (pen name) for working further. Mel is said to have developed the strain to the point of having two distinct phenos, A and B. Mel is later quoted as saying that the A strain was better, and that is the cut that wound up floating around the US west for us to grow and smoke here. Strain B went to Amsterdam, where (supposedly, if you can believe anything that is said about or by David Watson or his multiple aliases) Sam the Skunkman worked the strain further (crossing it with Skunk #1), and that is what is sold as seed stock out of Holland. Gott'a take this with several pounds of salt, as I have read accounts by Sam Skunkman that he got the Durban strain in 1979 from Ed before Mel worked it. or even before Mel came back from ZA. Others say he was the one in Holland that got strain B much later. San Skunkman did not go to Amsterdam until after the bust of Sacred Seeds in Santa Cruz in 1984, when according to accounts, he met Ed Rosenthal for the first time. So after the strain left the US after being brought here and worked, I just read it as being another fake news story.