Smokin Moose
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex Moderator
Don't think, even for a second, that growing pot for pleasure and profit is for the young. Not even close. And that is what this story - it's actually true by the way - is all about.
My two great uncles, Edmund and Edsel; don't worry about their last names - it's not important; born in 1917, have been growing and selling this wonderful weed called marijuana for decades with a fairly short break in 1984 - 1985. It's not because they're poor and are trying to scratch out a living. They are both quite well off, thank you very much. They do it because ... well hell, people are willing to buy it. Its the all American way. Same as booze during prohibition. People still drank. People still smoke.
Now Edmund and Edsel have this apple farm in New Mexico. Let me tell you, they are in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Nothing and nobody around for miles. Well, their apple farm did, and continues to do, quite well. However old Edmund and Edsel thought that supplementing the apple income did not sound like a bad idea at all. Sure beats the hell out of government farm subsidies, which we the taxpayer pay for. I like their attitude. Saving us taxpayers money and all. They each should get a medal.
Those two yahoos are not greedy so they figured they would start with a small crop of pot and see what happened. So, they furrowed between just one row of apple trees and planted the first set of "happy seeds." Yeah, that's what they called 'em. Being successful farmers, they knew the business end of things. Getting a crop to market. Apples are easy, take 'em to the store. Pot, on the other hand, is slightly more complicated.
Being fine upstanding citizens of the State of New Mexico and Christians to boot, Edmund and Edsel knew full well that there are exactly two kinds of sinning, clean and dirty. Lemme 'splain this to the uninitiated. Clean sinning is like cheating on your wife, but not getting your girlfriend pregnant and doing it out of town (gotta keep the locals on your side). Dirty sinning is cheating on your wife, getting your girlfriend pregnant (then dumping her), and doing it in your own house while your wife is at the store (not a good idea). Soooo, the brothers decided to harvest and sell their cash crop in El Paso (we New Mexicans call it El Pazoo), Texas. Come harvest time, as it was their first crop and not overly large, Edmund and Edsel harvested their pot crop by hand, placed the 'fruits' of their labor into gunny sacks and drove to El Pazoo. Needless to say they found a legitimate buyer and came home with quite a bit more non-taxable income in their pockets than they had before.
Over the next several years Edmund and Edsel kept increasing the size of the ... ummmm, pot patch. Finally, the patch got so big, and they were getting older, that they needed equipment to harvest the crop. One of them, can't remember which one, called my cousin who was managing the family farm and asked to borrow - you're not going to believe this - the tractor towed New Holland hay baler. A three wire at that! They also borrowed the cutter and rower. Naturally my cousin said 'OK', you don't turn down kin after all. Thus the harvesting operation required just one person, was a whole lot faster and produced a uniform bale weight. 125 pound bale o' pot. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? For transportation of the bales, the good old 1964 Ford F-350 flat bed did just fine. Money kept ... rolling in, to say the least.
Like I said, Edmund and Edsel did this for, quite literally, decades. 1960's - 1984. But all good things must come to an end, at least temporarily. During the summer of 84, a dry year by most standards, the blasted DEA was doing fly-overs of property, looking for "excess" water usage. Lo and behold the jerks of the DEA zeroed in on the apple farm. A fairly short time later, couple of weeks or so, these same fools (DEA obviously) went to the county sheriff and told him what was up and they were going to raid the apple farm. Excuse me, but that doesn't cut it back home. If anybody is going to raid anybody it's going to be handled by the county sheriff. Not some alphabet soup city slicker outsider organization. No way. It just doesn't happen. As an aside, are you starting to understand the difference between clean and dirty sinning? Keeping the locals on your side? It can pay dividends as you shall shortly read.
The day of the raid arrived, not at night, no dynamic entry. Nope, nothing like that. Two marked patrol cars. The sheriff and three deputies. They parked in front of the house, walked up to the front door and knocked. Great Aunt Gertrude (Edmund and Edsel's sister) answered the door. After initial small talk -- discussing the state of the union and all, the sheriff asked Aunt Gertrude if Edmund and Edsel were home, he needed to talk to them.
Gertrude knew something was up. 'Them brothers up to no good again sheriff?' or something like that. Never the less she went and got them, after inviting the sheriff and entourage inside. A short time later, its not a real big house, the pot brothers show up and the sheriff, once again after small talk told them what the DEA had told him. Believe it or not Edmund and Edsel 'fessed up to "producing" marijuana, I'll get to that in a minute. The sheriff fully understood the situation instantly. Edmund and Edsel being fine upstanding citizens of the State of New Mexico and Christians to boot were not "drug dealers" in the classic sense of the word. Not at all. At worst, they both got caught clean sinning. But the law was the law and justice must be served.
And served it was. With the assistance of the New Holland alfalfa cutter, not the baler, and the 3 deputies, the pot patch was mowed down. Under the supervision of the elected sheriff. Talk about clear cutting. What a shame. It was then transported to a clearing a few acres away from the apple rows and ... burnt. Burnt to a cinder. Nothing left at all.
Not being there when the raid happened I have no idea if all the parties stood down wind. It would have been a nice touch though.
As for Edmund and Edsel, no charges were ever filed. What did I tell you about clean sinning? Keep it in mind. Also, a new cost effective underground irrigation system, discovered by the University of New Mexico, Roswell Branch, (yeah, those are the same idiots that believe in aliens) will make it more so plenty too hard for the DEA to pin excess water usage on Edmund and Edsel in the future.
Oh, before I forget, and this is very important for all future producers of pot, Edmund and Edsel were not and are not dealers. Producers yes, dealers no. They raise a crop and sell said crop to a wholesaler. They do not, in any way, 'refine' the product for resale purposes. That is the difference. May seem small, but nonetheless, important.
Edsel is gone now. Edmund is still quite spry and mentally sharp in his 80's. Is he still producing? I'll never tell.
By: Robert P.
My two great uncles, Edmund and Edsel; don't worry about their last names - it's not important; born in 1917, have been growing and selling this wonderful weed called marijuana for decades with a fairly short break in 1984 - 1985. It's not because they're poor and are trying to scratch out a living. They are both quite well off, thank you very much. They do it because ... well hell, people are willing to buy it. Its the all American way. Same as booze during prohibition. People still drank. People still smoke.
Now Edmund and Edsel have this apple farm in New Mexico. Let me tell you, they are in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Nothing and nobody around for miles. Well, their apple farm did, and continues to do, quite well. However old Edmund and Edsel thought that supplementing the apple income did not sound like a bad idea at all. Sure beats the hell out of government farm subsidies, which we the taxpayer pay for. I like their attitude. Saving us taxpayers money and all. They each should get a medal.
Those two yahoos are not greedy so they figured they would start with a small crop of pot and see what happened. So, they furrowed between just one row of apple trees and planted the first set of "happy seeds." Yeah, that's what they called 'em. Being successful farmers, they knew the business end of things. Getting a crop to market. Apples are easy, take 'em to the store. Pot, on the other hand, is slightly more complicated.
Being fine upstanding citizens of the State of New Mexico and Christians to boot, Edmund and Edsel knew full well that there are exactly two kinds of sinning, clean and dirty. Lemme 'splain this to the uninitiated. Clean sinning is like cheating on your wife, but not getting your girlfriend pregnant and doing it out of town (gotta keep the locals on your side). Dirty sinning is cheating on your wife, getting your girlfriend pregnant (then dumping her), and doing it in your own house while your wife is at the store (not a good idea). Soooo, the brothers decided to harvest and sell their cash crop in El Paso (we New Mexicans call it El Pazoo), Texas. Come harvest time, as it was their first crop and not overly large, Edmund and Edsel harvested their pot crop by hand, placed the 'fruits' of their labor into gunny sacks and drove to El Pazoo. Needless to say they found a legitimate buyer and came home with quite a bit more non-taxable income in their pockets than they had before.
Over the next several years Edmund and Edsel kept increasing the size of the ... ummmm, pot patch. Finally, the patch got so big, and they were getting older, that they needed equipment to harvest the crop. One of them, can't remember which one, called my cousin who was managing the family farm and asked to borrow - you're not going to believe this - the tractor towed New Holland hay baler. A three wire at that! They also borrowed the cutter and rower. Naturally my cousin said 'OK', you don't turn down kin after all. Thus the harvesting operation required just one person, was a whole lot faster and produced a uniform bale weight. 125 pound bale o' pot. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? For transportation of the bales, the good old 1964 Ford F-350 flat bed did just fine. Money kept ... rolling in, to say the least.
Like I said, Edmund and Edsel did this for, quite literally, decades. 1960's - 1984. But all good things must come to an end, at least temporarily. During the summer of 84, a dry year by most standards, the blasted DEA was doing fly-overs of property, looking for "excess" water usage. Lo and behold the jerks of the DEA zeroed in on the apple farm. A fairly short time later, couple of weeks or so, these same fools (DEA obviously) went to the county sheriff and told him what was up and they were going to raid the apple farm. Excuse me, but that doesn't cut it back home. If anybody is going to raid anybody it's going to be handled by the county sheriff. Not some alphabet soup city slicker outsider organization. No way. It just doesn't happen. As an aside, are you starting to understand the difference between clean and dirty sinning? Keeping the locals on your side? It can pay dividends as you shall shortly read.
The day of the raid arrived, not at night, no dynamic entry. Nope, nothing like that. Two marked patrol cars. The sheriff and three deputies. They parked in front of the house, walked up to the front door and knocked. Great Aunt Gertrude (Edmund and Edsel's sister) answered the door. After initial small talk -- discussing the state of the union and all, the sheriff asked Aunt Gertrude if Edmund and Edsel were home, he needed to talk to them.
Gertrude knew something was up. 'Them brothers up to no good again sheriff?' or something like that. Never the less she went and got them, after inviting the sheriff and entourage inside. A short time later, its not a real big house, the pot brothers show up and the sheriff, once again after small talk told them what the DEA had told him. Believe it or not Edmund and Edsel 'fessed up to "producing" marijuana, I'll get to that in a minute. The sheriff fully understood the situation instantly. Edmund and Edsel being fine upstanding citizens of the State of New Mexico and Christians to boot were not "drug dealers" in the classic sense of the word. Not at all. At worst, they both got caught clean sinning. But the law was the law and justice must be served.
And served it was. With the assistance of the New Holland alfalfa cutter, not the baler, and the 3 deputies, the pot patch was mowed down. Under the supervision of the elected sheriff. Talk about clear cutting. What a shame. It was then transported to a clearing a few acres away from the apple rows and ... burnt. Burnt to a cinder. Nothing left at all.
Not being there when the raid happened I have no idea if all the parties stood down wind. It would have been a nice touch though.
As for Edmund and Edsel, no charges were ever filed. What did I tell you about clean sinning? Keep it in mind. Also, a new cost effective underground irrigation system, discovered by the University of New Mexico, Roswell Branch, (yeah, those are the same idiots that believe in aliens) will make it more so plenty too hard for the DEA to pin excess water usage on Edmund and Edsel in the future.
Oh, before I forget, and this is very important for all future producers of pot, Edmund and Edsel were not and are not dealers. Producers yes, dealers no. They raise a crop and sell said crop to a wholesaler. They do not, in any way, 'refine' the product for resale purposes. That is the difference. May seem small, but nonetheless, important.
Edsel is gone now. Edmund is still quite spry and mentally sharp in his 80's. Is he still producing? I'll never tell.
By: Robert P.