#redwood trinity high | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

charthurlover · 4 months ago

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What perfume/cologne would the Van Der Linde gang wear

hi!! this is my first tumblr post, and i don’t exactly know how to do this or work the app, so forgive me if this is horribly worded or confusing.

anyways, this is my opinion on what colognes or perfumes the gang would wear. horses and cain included, since they are technically a member of the gang!!

Abigail -

something woodsy, maybe like the forest or a campfire, cedar wood, trees, plants.

examples:

- G-Water

- Tam Dao

- Snoqualine

Arthur -

tobacco, scent of alcohol, mud, outdoors.

examples:

- Jasmin et Cigarette

- Rien

- Earthworm

Baylock -

ashes, grease.

examples:

- Tobacco Blaze

- Garage

- La Yuquam Homme

Bill -

any popular male fragrances, or like gunpowder and fire.

examples:

- 9mm Ballistic Therapy

- High Noon

- Campfire Nights

Boaz -

dynamite, money.

examples:

- Wall Street

- Don Xerjoff

- 1805 Tonnerre BeauFort London

Branwen -

oatcakes, apples, water.

examples:

- Lostmarch Lann-Ael

- Be Delicious

- Cavalli Acqua

Bob -

blood, gunpowder, sweat.

examples:

- Vena Cava

- Richard Dark Side

- Secretions Magnefique

Brown Jack

pomade, alcohol, blood.

examples:

- Classic Fragrance

- Heeley Agarwood

- Molotov Cocktail

Cain -

dog, mud, grass.

examples:

- La Panthere Edition Soir

- Grass

- Zoologist Bat

Charles -

light florals, nature, clean fur.

examples:

- Coach Floral

- Super Cedar

- Coyote

Dutch -

blood, metal, tears.

examples:

- Vassago

- Spacewalk

- Rainy Season of Dresden

Davey -

snow, wood, fire.

examples:

- Waltz of the Snowflakes

- Tobacco Vanille

- Inquisitor

Enis -

whiskey, beer, grass.

examples:

- Tom Oud

- Stout ‘n Smoke

- Dune Road

Grimshaw -

sulfur, metal, cinnamon.

examples:

- Bloody Smoke

- Vanille Absolu

- Jupiter

Gwydion -

birds, leather, salt.

examples:

- Seemannn

- Black Saffron

- Millésime Impérial

Hosea -

moonshine, stew, metal.

examples:

- Moscow Mule

- Starfish & Coffee

- Santal 33

Jack -

water, horse, corn oil.

examples:

- Petrichor

- Cuir de Russie

- Seems Legit

Javier -

mahogany, cotton, musk.

examples:

- Redwood Leaves

- Lazy Sunday Morning

- Urban Musk

Jenny -

snow, wool, wood.

examples:

- Redwood Mist

- Battaniye

- Grey Vetiver

John -

sweat, musk, grease

examples:

- Flores Negras

- Silver Musk

- Cristina La Veneno Ni Puta Ni Santa

Kieran -

blood, grass, oats.

examples:

- Hora de la Verdad Sombra

- Figuier Eden

- Harran

Karen -

beer, guns, whiskey.

examples:

- Beguile

- Wicked John

- Kutay

Lenny -

blood, books, bullets.

examples:

- Seems Legit

- Diamonitirion - elixir atonit

- Moon Child

Mac -

metal, bullets, kerosene.

examples:

- Craft

- Iron Duke

- Nuvolari Rubini

Maggie -

dirt, stone, bog.

examples:

- Le Sillage Blanc

- During the Rain

- Swamp elixir

Mary-Beth -

books, ink, gold.

examples:

- Bibliophilia: Love of Books

- Supreme Vanilla

- Royal Blood

Micah -

rot, corn, mold.

examples:

- Saint Louis Cemetery #1

- Funerie

- French Kiss

Molly -

roses, grass, trees.

examples:

- Roses Musk

- Leila Lou

- Colors de Benetton

Nell II -

sweat, cows, pig.

examples:

- Amyi 3.17

- Cuir de Russie

- Hyrax

Old Belle -

carrots, beer, hay.

examples:

- Carotte

- Sónar

- Basilico & Fellini

Old Boy -

musk, tears, cow.

examples:

- Another 13

- Ozone

- Osmanthus

Pearson -

meat, vegetables, crawfish.

examples:

- Gino: Steak Scented Eau de Parfum

- Eau de Cuisine

- Wild Carrot Oud

Reverend -

whiskey, incense, coffee.

examples:

- 7 Loewe

- Bourbon e Fava Tonka

- Black Opium

Sadie -

blood, tears, gunpowder.

examples:

- Bull’s Blood 2nd Edition

- Cool Glacier

- Rendez-Vous!

Sean -

whiskey, sweat, bullets.

examples:

- Malt Akro

- Monochrome

- Amour Nocturne

Silver Dollar -

fire, wool, metal.

examples:

- Encens Pyro

- The Sheepfold, Moonlight

- Rosenrot

Taima -

deer, blood, meat.

examples:

- Ma Bete

- Trinity Blood

- Good Girl Gone Bad

The Count -

sugarcubes, peaches, pears.

examples:

- Pixie Dust

- Allure Eau de Parfum

- First Base

Trelawny -

doves, rabbits, silk.

examples:

- Ruğa Sablo

- Wet Garden

- Baklava Musk

Tilly -

bullets, baby powder, swamps.

examples:

- 266ts Pontiff’s Harley

- Cashmere Mist Eau de Toilette

- Haxan

Uncle -

manure, horse, cow.

examples:

- D’zing

- L’heure Fougueuse

- Zoologist Cow

again, this is my first post so i’m very sorry about it being bad or isn’t looking right for tumblr. so sorry.

#rdr2 #van der linde gang #arthur morgan #john marston #dutch van der linde #hosea matthews #micah bell #red dead redemption 2

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nityarawal · 1 year ago

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Just 23, 2023

Dr. Nitya

Morning Songs

Met A Sargeant

Yesterday

He Said He Wasn't

Jewish

How Do You Know

I Asked

Could Be

Like My .01% Genius

Son

Like You Never Know

Who Co-Parented

With You

Have You Ever

Been In Love With A Jew

Perhaps Your Ancestors

Have

And A Bug Or Two

Remains

My Dear

Don't Judge

Been Often

Called "Other"

Wished Happy Channakah

At Christ-Ma-Cah

I Rejoice

At All God's Children

No Different From

You Or I

They Read Old

Testament

Rabbi Aviva Taught Us

But Whose

Your God

He Cried Suspiciously

Buddha

I like Him

He Says

Krisha

Physics

Laws Of Nature

Shiva

Unified Field- God

One God

Christ Almighty

Every Culture Loves Him

Just Different Names

Aspects

Course We Want

Him

At Our Campfire Always

Christ

With Her

Floor-length

Dreads

JA- With His

Thai-High

Siddhartha

Sattanand

Gautama

Grieving Together

For What Is

Loved Ones Not

Here

A Small

Slice Of Joy

Heaven On Hurkey

Creek

In Eternal

Brother Love

Pirate Camp

A Small Slice

Of Joy

Camping With You

My Love

Trinity

You, Me God

Sargeant

C'mon Tell The Army

You Deserve A PhD

He Says

C' Mon Sargeant

Call The Army

What Shall I Tell Them

Britney Spears

And I

Need Our Kids

Back

In The Shadows

Trinity

'C Mon Pray For Our Baes

Sargeants

In The

Redwoods

Trinity

You, Me - Divine

Always There

Trinity

My Beloved

Here

Protected

For A Minute By

The Pirates

Gypsies

So We Could Sing

Morrocan Camps

Carpets

In The Woods

Bands

Yachts at Sea

In Our Imaginations

Songs Of Love

Songs Of Freedom

Songs Of Love

Bards Of Court

Living

Peacefully

For A Minute

Singing Psalms

Of Our Hearts

New Laws

For Our Kids

Lassoing Daughter's

Back

Leading

Gypsies

In Music

Claims "Colony"

Rangers Call Us

Mystique Mystery

We Ask For More

Time

Sufi Dancers

Jigging

Though

September Renaisance Fair

Waiting For The

Children

With Our Marked

Surfers

Waiting

For

The Children

Dreaming Of

Point Surf

Break Days

Salt Water

Cleansing Us

X's Served

Masked

Twitter Delivers

Not Just $44B

Brand

To Be Outwitted

And De-Pantsed

On Social Media

Just Need Our Kids

Stop The Wars

Not The "Walrus"

Dearest #FreeBritney

And The #X

Need A

Peace Party

Circled In Hugs

Bros

Then

Rocket Blastoffs

Martians

Peace,

Dr. Nitya Nella Davigo Azam Moezzi Huntley Rawal

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embervoices · 2 years ago

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@hellenicrisis‘s

Hellenism Asks

Which deities do you worship? Dionysos & Ariadne, Apollo, Asklepios & Hygeia, Hekate, Aphrodite, and occasionally, Athena. Whoever else drops in is generally ok too.

How long have you been practising Hellenism? I'm not entirely sure it's fair to say I practice Hellenism, but to the degree that there are Hellenic gods in my life... ehm... at least 10 years?

What's your favourite myth? Growing up, I was especially fond of the stories of Prometheus and of Phaeton. Now I don’t exactly look at myths in terms of favorites, anymore.

Have you had a liking in Greek mythology since you were a kid? If so, does it influence your practice? Yes. I... suppose it must? I grew up reading folklore and mythology, especially Grimms, Classical Greek, and Norse.

Do you have an altar? Two. And several shrines. One of which is even for the Hellenic powers! Another of which has some Hellenic powers on it, as well (Horned and Antlered gods).

What drew you to Hellenism? What made you choose it over anything else? I didn't choose it over anything else, I'm basically Omnitheist and try to respect each Power's context as much as I can. I ended up with Hellenic practices because Dionysos kept hanging out and I eventually accepted that there was a reason for that. Or several.

Do you believe in past lives? Yep.

Do you believe in the Underworld? If so, do you think about it literally or as a concept? Neither. I consider otherspace and mythic reality a different category than either literal fact or abstract metaphor.

Do you listen to devotional music? Sometimes. I don't have much for the Hellenic side though.

Which deity do you turn to most in times of trouble? Of this pantheon, Dionysos. But I turn to Freyja more readily, honestly.

Do you wear any devotional jewellery? Most of my jewelry is devotional. If I’m wearing jewelry in the first place, odds are good it’s devotional. There’s decent odds I made it myself, for that matter, but that’s probably only about half, these days.

Do you have any food or drink recipe that is spirituality important? Hmm, a few, I think? Not for the Hellenes, myself, but I do help my girlfriend @auntieashleydark brew mead for Dionysos!

Who was the first deity you started worshipping? I'm not entirely sure how to answer this. I suppose the Christian Trinity would have to be the answer, as I was raised Episcopalian first. Among the Hellenes, I was first interested in Athena, but I think Dionysos probably has to be who I actually started working with first directly? It’s kind of hard to account for before I was actively focused on it that way...

Who is the most recent deity you started worshipping? Various Welsh powers have been knocking lately. Among the Hellenes, though, Aphrodite is the most recent addition. I need to work with Hekate more.

Is there a deity you tried worshipping and working with, but it didn't work out? Athena was actually where I'd planned to start, before I was polytheistic in the first place. My boyfriend when I was in high school was with Thiasos Olympicos and focused on Apollo. I'd always thought Athena sounded pretty cool, so I thought it might be a good way to get to know his traditions and community. For various reasons, that did not work out. She’s on my list these days, again, but from a totally different angle, and she’s not a primary focus even within the pantheon.

Is there another deity you are considering worshipping? My plate is overfull as it is. If they come knocking, I know better than to refuse outright, but I'm not seeking.

When people ask you what religion you belong to, what do you say? It really depends who asks, and why. I usually handwave to the general public as "Pagan" because I don't expect uninvolved strangers to understand any of the distinctions I'd make from there, like "Relational Polytheist" or "Omnitheistic & Animistic Spirit Worker" or "Multi-Trad" much less the names of specific traditions like "RedWood Vanatru", "American Umbanda", "Thiasos Bakkheios", "Treebridge", etc.

Has Christianity/Catholicism affected your practice or your views about your practice at all? Not sure why Catholicism is called out separately in this context but yes, and yes. I was raised Episcopalian, and spent some time as an acolyte as a pre-teen. My degree in Religious Studies is from a Catholic university. I'm quite sure both those things, plus growing up in a country that has a lot of Mainline and Evangelical Protestant cultural influences have all affected my perspective, whether I like it or not. I do try to account for that, and to correct for it when it's not appropriate, but I have recently been accepting that Christianity is again/still one of the branches of my practice. And yeah, there are some interesting Hellenic influences there, that I’m aware of, thanks in part to that RS degree.

@shiny-speedy-devotee’s

Polytheism Asks

What’s your least favorite myth? I don’t really look at it that way. I’m certainly not fond of the ones involving consent violations.

What’s your favorite myth? Again, I don’t really look at it that way. I suppose I like the ones that are just plain weird.

What pantheon(s) do you worship? I’m effectively an omnitheist. Depending on how one itemizes pantheons, I’ve had at least brief contact with more than I’d like to try to count. But the pantheons I relate to consistently enough to have permanent marks on my body for are: Vanir, Aesir, Orixa, Loa, Irish, Welsh, Hellenic, Kemetic, and an infinity symbol for the Whole That Is Divine. I’m also an animist.

Who is your least favorite ancient poet/philosopher/old guy who said “smart” things? Probably Thomas Aquinas. Not that he had much to say about my faith, really. But I had to read some of his work in my Religious Studies and Philosophy classes in university and am definitely not a fan.

What’s your favorite snack to share with the gods? (Curtesy of @luminarycanary) Honey is sacred to nearly all of them. I collect varietals.

Do you pray daily? If so, do you have a prayer schedule? I don’t have a schedule. I have everyday prayers, but I say them as the impulse arises, not literally every day. They go well before a meal, and before undertaking ritual work. But they’re specifically centered on the Vanir, who are Family/Home to me, so I have other set prayers/songs for other purposes, as well as whatever extemporaneous expression arises.

Do you do any rituals or celebrate any holidays/festivals? Yes. Many. MANY. I should make this its own post.

How often to you make offerings, and what is your most common offering to give? The most common offerings are a candle, a libation, or a song. Candles happen several times a week these days, if only for the Community Well Being Altar. Libations are less common. They used to be several times a month, but the reasons for that have fallen away over the last few years. Still, at least monthly. Songs are connected to specific prompts, which have also fallen away over the last couple years. Those, too, are closer to monthly right now.

How many altars do you currently have up, if any at all? Uhhhhhh *counts* 8-12, depending on how you count altars, I think? Some people distinguish between altars and shrines, at which point I’d have to say most of those are shrines. If I itemize the individual deities, I have easily dozens, but they’re mostly clumped together by pantheon or domain. I have one, maybe two working altars going most of the time lately.

Have you ever made a travel altar? In the sense of making a specific small portable altar/shrine thingy, no. In the sense of packing up a small box of whatever it seems like I might need for travel, many times. I’m not opposed - it sounds like a fun craft project. But what I need with me varies a little too much, beyond what I carry in my purse all the time anyway.

What deity do you think your taste in music best represents, regardless of who you worship? Probably Brighid. With a side of Ghede.

What has been your favorite interaction with a deity so far? I have absolutely no idea how to answer this.

What is your favorite devotional act? Singing!

Would you say there’s a certain “type” of deity you follow? Or are you more broad, without rhyme or reason? Most of the gods I work with at all frequently are on the Life/Death axis, or are Tricksters. But I will work with almost any deity who drops by, if there’s a reason for it. Magic is also a pretty common domain around here.

Have you ever worked with a deity? As opposed to what? Well, regardless, by just about every definition that might have been meant by this, yes. Working with deities is pretty well my job. I’m ordained Vanatru clergy, a spirit worker, dreamworker, oracle, and witch.

Have you ever been to a religious site (for your deities)? Several. It seems like every time I get to go on vacation, the Powers find a way to turn it into a pilgrimage. Gamla Uppsala in particular was wonderful.

Do you have any UPGs? Quite a few. Mostly about the Vanir.

What is your favorite way to communicate with the gods? Possession trance is extremely helpful, but there’s a lot of places to introduce error into the process, and it can be damaging to handle it poorly. Still, ecstatic trance states in general are a major focus of my practice, when possible.

Do you just worship deities, or do you worship heroes, spirits, etc. as well? My practices include animism and ancestor reverence. I tend to focus less on “heroes”, and more on personal connections, and general interconnectedness.

What’s something new you want to try in your worship? Herbalism. Fragrance blending. The overlap between my list of craft interests and my list of worship interests is very high.

What would your ideal practice look like? I wish I knew! The last few years have changed a lot, and I’m frankly at a bit of a loss now. It’s been exhausting. I can’t keep up what I had to build during lockdown, and the extended community practices that supported me before don’t work anymore. Figuring out what I and we need to do henceforth is a big, big task on my plate right now. More than I can really address, yet.

Have you ever received a dream/a big sign from a deity? I’m a dreamworker, so my sense of scale for this is probably skewed. But yes, several times.

Are there any new deities you want to contact? I already have more deities on my list than I know what to do with. I won’t refuse newcomers, but I’m not seeking them out.

How do you define devotion vs worship? “Worship” is the expression of love for divinity. Forms of worship correspond to “love languages”: praise, offerings, services, etc. “Devotion” is a deeply personal relationship with a specific entity. They’re different points on a continuum. Roughly the emotional difference between enjoying a party to honor a member of your community you think well of but don’t necessarily hang out with much personally, vs. paying personal attention to your best friend, lover, sibling, etc. Either way, the point is the relationship.

What is your favorite symbol of your deity(ies)? I am rather fond of the Vanatru Boar symbol.

#part 3 #Hellenism Version

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xmasqoo-haineke · 4 years ago

Quote

Per aspera ad astra (phrase meaning) … Not to be confused with "Per ardua ad astra." … * * * "Ad astra per aspera" redirects here. For other uses, see Per aspera ad astra (disambiguation). Disclosure: This article may need additional citations for verification. Find sources: "Per aspera ad astra" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2020) "Per aspera ad astra", from Finland in the Nineteenth Century, 1894 Per aspera ad astra (or, less commonly, ad astra per aspera) is a popular Latin phrase meaning "through hardships to the stars". The phrase is one of the many Latin sayings that use the expression ad astra, meaning "to the stars". Contents 1 Uses 1.1 Governmental entities 1.2 Military and government 1.3 Literature 1.4 Music 1.5 Anime 1.6 Educational and research institutions 1.6.1 Australia 1.6.2 Austria 1.6.3 Botswana 1.6.4 Ecuador 1.6.5 Estonia 1.6.6 Honduras 1.6.7 India 1.6.8 Jamaica 1.6.9 Japan 1.6.10 Macau 1.6.11 Maldives 1.6.12 New Zealand 1.6.13 Nigeria 1.6.14 Norway 1.6.15 Pakistan 1.6.16 Paraguay 1.6.17 Philippines 1.6.18 Romania 1.6.19 Russia 1.6.20 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 1.6.21 Slovakia 1.6.22 Slovenia 1.6.23 South Africa 1.6.24 Sri Lanka 1.6.25 Sweden 1.6.26 Tajikistan 1.6.27 Ukraine 1.6.28 United Kingdom 1.6.29 United States 1.7 Fraternities and sororities 1.8 Popular culture 1.9 Others 2 See also 3 References 4 External link Uses[edit] Various organizations and groups use this expression and its variants. Governmental entities[edit] Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin[1] State of Kansas (Ad astra per aspera)[2] Municipality of Cheribon, Netherlands East Indies[3] City of Gouda, The Netherlands[4] Honored Scientist of Armenia[5] Military and government[edit] Department of Civil Aviation, Thailand[6] Military Technical Academy in Bucharest, Romania[7] National Defence Academy of Latvia[8] South African Air Force[9] Spanish Air Force Hon. Julie Payette, 29th Governor General of Canada[10] Royal Life Guards (Denmark) Literature[edit] In Kenta Shinohara's Astra Lost in Space, it is inscribed on a plaque on the bridge of the ship that the crew subsequently decided to name the Astra.[11] In Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan, it was quoted as both the motto of Martian Imperial Commandos, a unit within the larger Martian Army, in addition to being the motto of Kansas, U.S.A., Earth, Solar System, Milky Way. In Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird", it was quoted as the motto of Maycomb, during the school play. In James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"[12] In Pierce Brown's "Red Rising" book series it is a common phrase used by the Golds of The Society. In M.L.Rio's "If We Were Villains" it is the motto of the Dellecher Academy. Music[edit] The subtitle of Moritz Moszkowski's set of fifteen Études de Virtuosité for piano, op. 72 (published 1903). The subtitle of Charles Villiers Stanford's Piano Trio No. 3, Op. 158 (1918). The title of the fourth album by ambient music duo Stars of the Lid (1998). The subtitle of Sergei Bortkiewicz's 3rd piano concerto (1927). The title of a song by Spiritual Beggars from their album Ad Astra (2000). The title of a song by Haggard (band) from their album "Eppur Si Muove" (2004). Acceptance has an instrumental track on their Phantoms album titled "Ad Astra Per Aspera" (2005). The title of the second album (2011) by Abandon Kansas. Per Aspera Ad Aspera, the name of a best-of album by the band ASP (2014). The title of a march by Ernst Urbach op. 4 (1906). The title of an album of marches by the Royal Norwegian Air Force Band. The title of a composition by Hasaan Ibn Ali from his second Atlantic recording, never released, the master tapes of which were destroyed in the Atlantic warehouse fire of 1978.[13] The subtitle of an instrumental song by the symphonic metal band Nightwish (2020). Anime[edit] Mentioned in anime Astra Lost in Space on the Ark Series Spaceship which is later named as ASTRA. Educational and research institutions[edit] Australia[edit] Queenwood School for Girls, Mosman NSW Woodville High School, Adelaide Albury High School, Albury, New South Wales[14] Girton Grammar School, Bendigo, Victoria Austria[edit] Universität Klagenfurt Botswana[edit] St. Joseph's College, Kgale Ecuador[edit] Instituto Nacional Mejía,Quito, Ecuador Estonia[edit] Keila-Joa Boarding School, Türisalu[15] Jakob Westholm Secondary School, Tallinn[16] Honduras[edit] Escuela Nacional de Música, Tegucigalpa Instituto Salesiano San Miguel, Tegucigalpa India[edit] Clarence High School, Bangalore, Karnataka, India - Motto of Redwood House (Ad Astra) St. Augustine's High School, kalimpong, District:Darjeeling, India Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC), New Delhi, India The Frank Anthony Public School,Kolkata,India The Frank Anthony Public School, Delhi, India - Motto of Ranger House St Joseph's High School, Dharwad, Karnataka, India Antonio D'souza High School, Mumbai, India Technology Research and Incubation Centre, Dimapur, Nagaland Jamaica[edit] Immaculate Conception High School, St. Andrew Mount Alvernia High School, Montego Bay Japan[edit] St. Francis Church, Tokyo, West-Hachioji, Gnosis Essene (HP) Macau[edit] Postgraduate Association of University of Macau, Macau Maldives[edit] MNDF Fire and Rescue Services Training School, K.Viligili New Zealand[edit] Rotorua Boys' High School, Rotorua Nigeria[edit] Ilupeju College, Ilupeju, Lagos Lagos Secondary Commercial Academy, LASCA Kalabari National College, Buguma, Rivers State Oriwu Model College, Igbogbo, Ikorodu Norway[edit] Stavanger Cathedral School, Stavanger Sortland videregående skole, Nordland Lillehammer videregående skole Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Pakistan[edit] St Patrick's High School, Karachi St. Patrick's College, Karachi Paraguay[edit] Universidad Autónoma de Asunción Philippines[edit] Far Eastern University - Nicanor Reyes Medical Foundation, Quezon City St. John Paul II College of Davao, Davao City Rosevale School, Cagayan de Oro City Juan R. Liwag Memorial High School, Gapan City Cagayan State University, Tuguegarao City Romania[edit] Mihai Eminescu High School,[17] Suceava Colegiul National "Andrei Saguna" Brasov[18] Colegiul National "Doamna Stanca" Fagaras[19] Alexandru Papiu Ilarian High School,[20] Targu-Mures Andrei Mureşanu High School,[21] Bistrița Márton Áron Főgimnázium [ro], Csíkszereda (Liceul Teoretic "Márton Áron", Miercurea-Ciuc) Ovidius High School,[22] Constanta Military Technical Academy,[23] Bucharest Russia[edit] School no. 1259, Moscow Saint Vincent and the Grenadines[edit] Saint Vincent Grammar School, Kingstown Slovakia[edit] Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies of Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava Slovak Organisation for Space Activities Slovenia[edit] Prva gimnazija Maribor, Maribor Gimnazija Jesenice, Jesenice Gimnazija Škofja Loka, Škofja Loka South Africa[edit] Pietersburg Hoërskool[24] Tembisa Secondary School South African Air Force[25][circular reference] Ribane-Laka Secondary School Chistlehurst Academics and Arts School Sri Lanka[edit] St. Paul's Girls' School, Milagiriya, Colombo District, Western Province Sweden[edit] Västmanland Air Force Wing[26] Tajikistan[edit] Gymnasium #1 after V. Chkalov, Buston, Khujand, Sugd region Ukraine[edit] Space Museum dedicated to Korolyov in Zhytomyr Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Bucha Ukrainian gymnasium United Kingdom[edit] The Royal School, Haslemere, Surrey Colfe's School, Greenwich, London Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend, Kent Dr. Challoner's Grammar School, Amersham, Buckinghamshire British Lawn Mower Racing Association United States[edit] California State University East Bay, Hayward, California[27] Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina[28] Cornelia Strong College, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, North Carolina Coventry High School, Coventry, Rhode Island East Hampton High School, East Hampton, Connecticut Greenhill School, Dallas, Texas[29] Irvington Union Free School District, Irvington, New York Saint Joseph Academy, Brownsville, Texas Lake View High School, Chicago, Illinois Lyndon Institute, Lyndon Center, Vermont Macopin Middle School, West Milford, New Jersey Miami Central High School, Miami, Florida Midwood High School, Brooklyn, New York Mirman School, Los Angeles, California Morristown-Beard School, Morristown, New Jersey Mount Saint Michael Academy, Bronx, New York Satellite High School, Satellite Beach, Florida Seven Lakes High School, Katy, Texas Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey[30] Trinity Prep, Winter Park, Florida[31] Townsend Harris High School, Queens, New York University High School, Fresno, California University of Tennessee Space Institute, Tullahoma, Tennessee Oak Harbor Academy Private School, Lemoore, California Fraternities and sororities[edit] Beta Sigma Psi National Lutheran Fraternity[32] Sigma Gamma Phi – Arethusa Sorority[33] Korp! Amicitia – Estonian student sorority. Freemasons-Knight's Templar, 32nd Degree K.Ö.St.V. Almgau Salzburg - Austrian Catholic Student Association[34] K.a.V. Danubia Wien-Korneuburg im ÖCV - Austrian Catholic Student Association Popular culture[edit] Appears on the hull of the ship 'Searcher' in the second season of Buck Rogers. Garrison Keillor routinely references the phrase as the only Latin phrase he cared to remember on A Prairie Home Companion.[35][36] Per Aspera Ad Astra is a Soviet Russian science fiction film by Richard Viktorov, written by Kir Bulychov. Rip Torn says this phrase to David Bowie in the film The Man Who Fell to Earth. Tomo Milicevic of the band 30 Seconds to Mars has a tattoo on his right forearm reading 'per aspera et astra', with the band's logo in the background in red. Aspera! Per aspera! Per ardua! Ad astra! is the refrain of the song "Aspera" by Erin McKeown on the album We Will Become Like Birds. American singer, rapper, dancer, actress, and songwriter Kiely Williams has "Per aspera ad astra" tattooed on her right forearm. Title of a play depicting the history of the fictional Maycomb County in To Kill a Mockingbird, in which the translation is given as from the mud to the stars. Title of a song by Haggard, from the album Eppur Si Muove. The name of an album by Abandon Kansas. It is one of many hidden messages in the 2009 video game The Conduit. Motto of the Martian Imperial Commandos in Kurt Vonnegut novel, The Sirens of Titan. Title of a song by Seattle-based band Acceptance. Title of a song by Goasia, appearing on the album From Other Spaces (Suntrip Records, 2007) Appears on right side shoulder patch in Star Trek Enterprise, on the "newer" uniform style shown on the series finale. In Star Trek The Next Generation it is shown to be the motto of Starfleet. The official motto of Solforce in the videogame Sword of the Stars. The phrase is used as the name of the tenth track on the score for the film Underworld: Rise of the Lycans by Paul Haslinger. Title of a song by the band Spiritual Beggars from their album Ad Astra. Title of a song by the band Die Apokalyptischen Reiter from their album Samurai. The final mission (Chapter 15) in the Mafia II video game In a tattoo piece in The Raven The phrase has been spoofed slightly by the band Ghost in the song "Per Aspera Ad Inferi" from their album Infestissumam[37] literally meaning "Through hardships to hell".[38] Title of a background music from the Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire video games which plays during a voyage into space. In the 2015 film The Martian, at the end of the film astronaut Mark Watney is giving his first lecture to the Astronaut Candidate Program and the phrase appears embedded in the central floor area of the lecture hall around a logo In Bioware's Mass Effect 3, this phrase is set in the middle of the wall of names dedicated to the fallen crew members of the main ship, the SSV Normandy SR2. Title of character leveling achievements in Mistwalker's mobile game Terra Battle Found in the Gravity Falls Journal #3, penned on the title page. Appears on the journal both in the show and on the real-life replica.[39] The title of a Pee Wee Gaskins album (2010). The title character in Ottessa Moshfegh's novel Eileen accepts and smokes a Pall Mall and refers to the motto on the package translated as "Through the thorns to the stars." On the ship the students find in Astra Lost in Space, there is a plaque with this saying on it. The motto of the Golds in Pierce Brown's Red Rising Series. Ad Astra is a 2019 American science fiction film by James Gray. Appears in the logo of the Universal Paperclips Advanced AI Research Group. Others[edit] As part of the official team crest of Arendal Football As part of the team crest of the former Collingwood Cricket Club. A plaque honoring the astronauts of Apollo 1 at the launch site where they perished. A tribute exhibit to the Apollo 1 Astronauts "Ad Astra Per Aspera - A Rough Road Leads to the Stars" opened on January 27, 2017, the 50th anniversary of the loss of the crew, at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Inscribed on the crest of Pall Mall cigarettes packages[40] The theme of "POR CC XXI" by Kolese Kanisius Jakarta Part of a custom paint job in World Of Tanks Tradewinds Swiss[41] Space Development Network[42] Part three of the book Jepp who Defied the Stars by Katherine Marsh has the phrase as its title.[43] Appears in Morse code on the track titled "Sounds of Earth" on the Voyager Golden Record that has copies aboard the Voyager 1 & 2 spacecraft that are currently in interstellar space. [44] See also[edit] Per ardua ad astra ("Through adversity to the stars") Per ardua ad astra, additional uses with reference to above article Ad astra per aspera, additional uses Per aspera ad astra, references this article References[edit] ^ "Decorations of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin". Archived from the original on 2008-08-29. ^ "Seal of Kansas". Kansapedia. Kansas Historical Society. March 2014. Archived from the original on 2020-07-06. Retrieved 2020-07-06. ^ "Nederlandsch-Indische Gemeentewapens" (PDF). NV Mij Vorkink. September 1933. Retrieved 2019-07-23. ^ "Gouda in the official Dutch heraldic records". High Council of the Nobility (Hoge Raad van Adel), The Hague. Retrieved 2019-10-28. ^ "Honored Scientist of Armenia" (PDF). Retrieved Sep 24, 2020. ^ Department of Civil Aviation Emblems Archived April 27, 2009, at the Wayback Machine ^ "Academia Tehnica Militara". Mta.ro. Archived from the original on 2007-07-03. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ http://www.naa.mil.lv/en.aspx ^ "The South African Air Force Emblems". Saairforce.co.za. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "OSGG/BSGG @RideauHall Twitter". twitter.com. Retrieved 2017-10-04. ^ Kenta Shinohara (w, a). Astra Lost in Space 2: 24/4 (2016-08-23), Viz Media ^ Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. p. 222. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-07-18. Retrieved 2014-07-18. ^ "Albury High School". Albury-h.schools.nsw.edu.au. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "Keila-Joa Boarding School". Keila-joa.edu.ee. Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "Jakob Westholm Secondary School". westholm.ee. Retrieved 2014-11-05. ^ "Colegiul Național Mihai Eminescu". cn-eminescu.ro. Retrieved 2014-02-23. ^ "Colegiul Naţional "Andrei Şaguna", Braşov". Saguna.ro. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "Colegiul Naţional "Doamna Stanca", Braşov". Doamnastanca.ro. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "Colegiul Naţional Alexandru Papiu Ilarian". Papiu.ro. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "Colegiul Național Andrei Mureșanu". Cnam.ro. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "Liceul Teoretic Ovidius". liceulovidius.ro. Retrieved 2014-07-01. ^ "Military Technical Academy Bucharest". www.mta.ro/. Retrieved 2017-11-08. ^ "Pietersburg Hoerskool". Pieties.co.za. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ South African Air Force ^ Braunstein, Christian (2005). Svenska flygvapnets förband och skolor under 1900-talet (PDF). Skrift / Statens försvarshistoriska museer, 1101-7023 ; 8 [dvs 9] (in Swedish). Stockholm: Statens försvarshistoriska museer. p. 44. ISBN 9197158488. SELIBR 9845891. ^ "California State University East Bay". Csueastbay.edu. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ Campbell University: General Information Archived July 26, 2008, at the Wayback Machine ^ Greenhill School: Statement of Philosophy Archived 2009-01-06 at Archive.today ^ "Stevens Institute of Technology: About Stevens". Stevens.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "Trinity Prep School: myTPS Portal". Trinityprep.org. Archived from the original on 2012-06-07. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "Beta Sigma Psi 2006 National Convention, see page header". Convention.betasigmapsi.org. 2009-12-27. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "Sigma Gamma Phi at SUNY Oneonta". Oneonta.edu. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ Almgau, 2014 (7 May 2011). "Startseite - ALMGAU". K.ö.St.V. Almgau Salzburg im MKV. ^ "transcript from the September 17, 2011 episode of A Prairie Home Companion". ^ Rev. Andy Ferguson. "Church Street United Methodist Church: February 20, 2001". churchstreetumc.blogspot.com. ^ "Ghost B.C. Store". Myplaydirect.com. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "A Nameless Ghoul From Ghost B.C. Speaks About 'Infestissumam', the Devil + More". Loudwire. Retrieved 2013-08-04. ^ Noble, Barnes &. "Gravity Falls: Journal 3|Hardcover". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2020-02-25. ^ "Pall Mall". History of Cigarette Brands. Archived from the original on 2011-08-17. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ "Test Tradewinds Swiss". ^ "(CA) Who owns the phone number? - Identify the Owner of a Phone Number 123". ownerphonenumber.online. Retrieved Sep 24, 2020. ^ Jepp who Defied the Stars, p. 225, at Google Books ^ "Voyager - Sounds on the Golden Record". voyager.jpl.nasa.gov. Retrieved Sep 24, 2020.

Click here to read more ==> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_aspera_ad_astra

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nevaholladay-blog · 5 years ago

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About Neva Holladay

Neva Holladay was born in Arkansas in a 54 Chevy truck. Her parents owned an off the grid property in the Ozarks Mountains. It turned out to be too remote and hard winters. They then moved to Tennessee, then Texas and finally Trinity county California. All were very rural and without electricity. Neva's upbringing was unorthodox and didn't attend "regular" school and learn to read until 11. Neva graduated from high school (basically the same school she now teaches at), went to College of the Redwoods, Humboldt State, and UC Davis. She has fallen down many times in her life, but she has always gotten back up. Neva is passionate about teaching mathematics and really thankful for her current job. Neva Holladay was born in Arkansas in a 54 Chevy truck. Her parents owned an off the grid property in the Ozarks Mountains. It turned out to be too remote and hard winters. They then moved to Tennessee, then Texas and finally Trinity county California. All were very rural and without electricity. Neva's upbringing was unorthodox and didn't attend "regular" school and learn to read until 11. Neva graduated from high school (basically the same school she now teaches at), went to College of the Redwoods, Humboldt State, and UC Davis. She has fallen down many times in her life, but she has always gotten back up. Neva is passionate about teaching mathematics and really thankful for her current job.

#Neva Holladay

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romera-rp · 5 years ago

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WORLDBUILDING POST 006: LOCATION; RUNSWICK

Runswick is hidden away behind great city walls and deep inside of a massive redwood forest that crawls with all types of beasts and monsters that threaten the surrounding settlements. To counter this problem, Runswick became a city built on bounties where the appropriate authorities or powerful nobles pay for the heads of the deadly monsters. The greater the threat the better they pay. These bounties draw in adventurers, mercenaries and anyone else looking to make some quick, albeit risky, gold. Over the years the bounties have become more and more popular. Alchemists put up listings for certain monster parts, farmers on the outskirts of the city request protection, and collectors looking for a new trophy for their collection likewise post their bounties. In a way, the bounties became a new sport as bounty hunters compete to see who can finish the biggest bounty first. Despite the rather inelegant business, the city is one of the most beautiful in Hegaehend. The city streets are grandly adorned with art, flowers and every manner of decorations. This is due to the main religion being Sune, the Goddess of love and beauty, with Aros sitting as the acting council member and Heartwarder of Sune for the city.

COUNCIL MEMBER: Lord Aros DOMINATE RELIGION: Sune, Goddess of Love and Beauty OTHER RELIGIONS: Dol Arrah, Milil, Lathander, Tymora, Malar

PLACES:

THE GARDEN OF ROSES - The temple of Sune is untraditional for a church. The main area of the building is taken up by a large garden courtyard. The garden is overflowing with cherry blossoms, willows, rose brushes and plenty more flowers, all nestling hidden areas of large pillows, wine and mirrors for worshippers to sit and admire themselves and each other. The small indoor shrine presents a large statue of Sune herself dressed in nothing but a translucent gown. The altar also offers perfume and cosmetic items for those who can’t afford such luxuries themselves.

LA ROCHE MOUSSUE - Attached to The Garden of Roses, La Roche Moussue is a luxury bathhouse. Featuring a high stained-glass window over the perfumed, soapy bubbles of the pools below. There are several private rooms available off the main bath, including both hot and cool pools, as well as a steam room and sauna. La Roche Moussue is the perfect place for any of the high class to come to relax and spend some time in their community.

LUNACREST - Originally a popular tavern in Runswick’s main square, Lunacrest took on the leading operations of the bounties once the enterprise got too big to be run from a simple bounty board. Now Lunacrest can be found always open, day or night, as mercenaries and adventurers lug back the results of their missions for rewards. A hub for all risk takers, the excitement of the competition never dims in this tavern.

THE GLISTENING TRINITY - Operating as an underground speakeasy, The Glistening Trinity is known as the most exclusive bar in town. Although the details and location of the bar is kept extremely quiet, anyone who is anyone will know how to get inside. Offering a lot more than alcohol, many people will turn a blind eye to the dealings of the owner Vinny Santos, a dwarven mafia boss, as long as they get to have a good time. With most of the city under his influence, including the guards themselves, Vinny needn’t worry about disruption. Whether it be through bribery or the promise of entertainment, he controls the grand majority of the business in Runswick.

HERITAGE AVENUE - With the fresh earnings of the bounties in hand, Heritage Avenue offers a quick way to empty your pockets. Every window showcases high-end stores such as dress tailors, glistening jewellers, and gorgeous beauty salons. As the city of Sune, every person walking the street is immaculately dressed and groomed with nary a hair out of place.

THE LADY’S CHASE - Worshippers of the goddess Tymora have a saying, “a copper to the Lady returns tenfold in gold,” and at The Lady’s Chase casino that is exactly what you can do. Patron’s can test their luck by taking part in card or dice games as well as place bets on races.

HEARTFIRE QUARTER - Lord Horcryn is a gnome nobleman who dedicates his every waking moment devoted to the Goddess of love. So much so that he has brought a manor house within Runswick to use for parties in her honour. Receiving one of the parties private invites will allow you to attend the celebrations when they occur on the first Saturday of each month. Within you will be met with unlimited amounts of alcohol and entertainment as people fulfil the goddesses wishes of appreciating love and beauty, spare bedrooms being in abundance within the large manor for anyone wanting to make their activities more private.

#romworldbuilding #fantasy rp #historical rp #new rp #original rp

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andreassencain96-blog · 6 years ago

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Redwood City Movers & Moving Corporations

We tried La Petite Baleen Swim School, Menlo Swim at Burgess Park in Menlo Park, and YMCA however had seen little progress, even with semi-non-public lessons. Then there's the La Petite Playhouse. Over the following 12 to 18 months, LinkedIn plans to completely integrate Glint's approximately 200 workers, in keeping with Crunchbase, although there aren't any immediate plans to close any of the Glint workplaces, an organization spokesperson confirmed Monday. The half hour lessons are simply long enough to go over essential skills like holding breath, kicking, and studying to hop into the pool. We've got used as few as three on highly targeted single course of enchancment initiatives, 20 on new software merchandise and over 50 on major product creation and rollouts. With a voice too skinny to travel greater than just a few toes, she made known her last wishes. It could be actually great if the stuff within the pool would be slightly bit extra nicer. She really enjoyed most of the teachers, particularly Jack who got her very comfortable with the pool and even into swim workforce which was not one thing we might have expected after we started. Phillip C. Floeter, a distinguished architect who had a couple of years earlier designed the Trinity Episcopal Church was engaged to attract up the plans and then construct a mansion calculated to dwarf Middle Avenue houses in each magnitude and ornamentation.

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I had explicitly informed Mike and Vanessa that I had a deadline when I'd stop all my swim lessons. I agreed. Sadly, beginning with that class, I may see a perceptible drop in the type of training Mike was imparting. Sadly, even crossing one state line qualifies your transfer as a protracted-distance move. To get out and explore as soon as you move in, redwood city movers have our movers take care of the dirty work. They have numerous glad purchasers. All of us have a singular capability, whether it's arts and crafts or rock climbing. Redwood Metropolis is a vibrant and eclectic city that invests in its tradition and arts. The Redwood City site is comparatively large and open, next to park area and grassy area. Established again in nineteen forty-9, the Wolfe household has operated the business out of the company headquarters within the Bay Space of San Francisco. Rated member of the better Enterprise Bureau, a ProMover, and a member of each the California and American Shifting & Storage Associations, we are dedicated to high quality, customer-oriented service.

No shenanigans, the quote was the quote, skilled from start to finish, very prompt and courteous in enterprise office. We provide crews of full-time professional San Francisco movers, fashionable automobiles and tools, and an attentive customer service employees on call to handle any unexpected complications that may come up. Crews are experienced skilled movers with wonderful work ethics. Our fees are simple to understand and our movers are educated professionals. If the scans are admitted to Annie’s trial, which is anticipated to take place early this 12 months, it may establish a authorized precedent in Alabama. And whereas some assume the applied sciences can have a spot in legal settings, others worry that the follow will lead to misuse of the scans. There are 3 conditions that have stood out to me in the 4 lessons we attended to date-- 1. For the non-public lessons, a boy was utterly distraught. But boy do the entrepreneurs simply keep getting youthful, but more on that later. Though Ben never left behind the boy who probed the riverbanks aboard a small skiff, the capital he amassed as boat owner and captain on Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Lake Huron, and the Georgian Bay would finally generate additional fortunes.

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a-super-evil-cat-who-murders · 7 years ago

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I have finally managed to draw a satisfactory map of Augustus, Washington.

Some statistics:

Population: 16,000

Founded: 1886

1 - Augustus High School

2 - Downtown

3 - Redwood Bluff Shopping Center

1 - Augustus Seaside Church & Cemetery (I’ve no fucking idea how to name churches)

2 - City Hall (that building with the tiny square in front sorta between 1 and 4

3 - Trinity Plaza

4 - Statue of Patrick Augustus

5 - Anne’s Canal (runs through the town)

1 - Augustus Elementary School

2 - Augustus Municipal Hospital

3 - Teddy Lake

1 - Abramovich Estate

2 - Augustus Family Mansion (abandoned)

3 - Puget Sound Community College - Augustus Campus

4 - Kane St. Church and Graveyard (again no idea how to name churches)

1 - Ferry Port of Augustus

2 - Augustus Harbor

3 - Train Depot

4 - Blackwood Mobile Home Park

(the port is co-owned by the City and the Abramovich Family)

#my writing projects #augustus washington

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this-writers-dream · 4 years ago

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Rustling Leaves [Part 1]

——

In the near future, the world teeters on the brink of apocalypse. A protagonist must enter a near-parallel world in order to investigate the mystery behind an event that has placed everyone's lives in peril.

——

Alicia sat comfortably in the backseat of a standard, military issue, black Chevrolet Suburban. Her head leaned to the side as she zoned out, gazing mesmerized at the expansive forest darting past the window. A single earbud dangled on her left shoulder as a video played, forgotten on the phone in her lap.

"—continue our coverage on the recent bombing." Finally catching her attention, Alicia peered down at the screen while adjusting her right earbud.

The modified United States seal prominently displayed on the bottom left corner of the screen indicated the video's status as a private military newscast. A well dressed woman sat behind an unoriginal news anchor desk before a massive American flag.

"Just under a week ago, Russian bombers penetrated our airfield with the intent of deploying what was first believed to be atomic bombs over the cities of San Francisco and Sacramento." Images of Russian bomber planes along with their projected routes and timelines appeared on the screen. As they approached the U.S. border, poorly edited clips of the ensuing dogfights accompanied by motivational anthems were shown. Had this display of overt appeal to patriotism occurred prior to the attack, Alicia might've rolled her eyes.

"While Air Force bomber destroyers deflected the advance and brought down the enemy, they were unsuccessful in preventing the deployment of the bombs." Alicia's gaze pulled away from the newscast to rest back out over the green expanse of conifers and pines.

When the bombs fell, all the world drew a collective breath. It felt as though Alicia were still holding hers now. She would never forget the feeling of collective dread as millions of eyes locked on screens of all kinds, following live updates on the bombers. Homemade videos were the hardest to watch.

On the newscast, a map of Northern California pinpointed the exact location of the bombing with a small red circle, about 20 miles to the northeast of Redding. "What was first believed to be atomic bombs however, are now considered biological weapons by intelligence experts. No explosion followed the release of the bomb-like objects that fell over Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Civilians in the surrounding areas instead reported, a 'loud popping sound' before the exponential and continuous growth of the surrounding flora began." The video cycled through short clips of the ensuing perennial invasion. A small tagline running across the bottom of the screen attributed the footage to civilian cellphones.

After the bombs dropped, instead of an explosion of fire, came an explosion of nature. It was entirely unexpected, perplexing, and horrifying in equal measure. All plant life within the surrounding area came alive with movement in the velocity of its spread, not unlike wildfire. As Alicia looked over the vast sea of green outside, she couldn't help but picture a high tide swelling and spilling over entire neighborhoods. It wasn't far from what had actually happened.

Only 12 hours post-bombing, towns and suburbs alike at either edge of the mountain forest, from Mt. Shasta to Redding, were consumed, engulfed in a verdant blanket. In a panic, communities attempted to suppress the growth with fire and other weapons of strength, but opposing nature at this amplified level had proven futile. The towering trees stood resilient against any attack, growing ever faster and stronger, impervious to anything they could muster in their war-torn, crippled state. In those first few hours, countless lives were lost.

"Evacuation efforts were initiated almost immediately," the newscast continued, "but, conservatively, hundreds have yet to be located. As a safety precaution, all civilian-lead search and rescue missions have ceased, and entry into the affected area by unauthorized personnel is prohibited until further notice." On the screen, the small red circle previously indicating where the bombs had dropped, quickly grew larger as time was manipulated forward. In seconds, the entire mountain was covered in red. The animation went unnoticed by Alicia, whose eyes remained locked on the trees flashing past the window, her thoughts on their ever expanding roots.

"The affected area continues increasing in size, but the rate of growth has been slowly, yet steadily decreasing since impact. Military units are re-establishing boundaries as necessary." A graph detailing the speed of the affected forest's growth over the past week compared to typical forest growth highlighted a staggering difference, followed by a second graph demonstrating yet another distressing comparison in tree size between those within Shasta forest and those in surrounding areas. Affected trees were monstrous, surpassing even the great Redwoods by hundreds of feet. Alicia glanced down in time to see a final image comparing the colossal giants to human scale. The prospect of making an impact against such odds seemed almost laughable.

As the Chevy approached the base of the mountain, the obvious disparity was visible first-hand. The affected trees towered menacingly at incredible heights, their trunks extending much farther than Alicia could follow with her gaze from within the car.

"Within less than 24 hours of the bombing, a Special Operations team was deployed to investigate the site. Regrettably, contact was lost shortly after their entry into the forest. Efforts to locate Delta team and re-establish contact are ongoing. In the meantime, an alternate, more compact, and specialized team comprised jointly of Army officers and Air Force-affiliated civilian scientists, have been dispatched. Together, they boast a combined field experience of well over 80 years." On the screen, Alicia's face along with three others' were pictured with their accompanying titles and ranks, but she didn't need to look down to know the information listed.

In the driver's seat was the Squadron Commander, U.S. Army Major Chester Mace. He drove silently, both hands on the wheel, with a calm but calculating way about him. His salt and pepper hair was trimmed short and a scar accentuated his square jaw. Beside him, was U.S. Army Master Sergeant Michael Hatter, with a boyish charm to match his kind blue eyes despite a receding hairline. The Sergeant nervously fingered his wedding ring as he too, stared absently out the window.

Behind the Major sat Dr. Barbara White, Alicia's research partner at the Beale Air Force Base, where they had offered specialized knowledge in biological and chemical warfare for many years since graduating from Stanford. The two had developed a strong friendship, often calling each other by the nicknames Bunny and Ali, though the newscast wouldn't've mentioned that.

"Their arrival to the southern Redding entry point is imminent." The video cut to a live feed of the black Chevy Suburban, and Alicia tried to ignore the rumbling helicopter above. "Coverage will continue to be provided throughout this critical mission. Unfortunately, as conflicts with Russia and China continue to escala—" The woman froze and a grey buffering wheel appeared shortly thereafter, blurring the entire screen. Alicia sighed in annoyance, all attempts at refreshing the internet connection unsuccessful.

"Why don't you put that away?" Came a soft voice from her left. Alicia snapped up, removing her earbud automaticaly, only to be met with Bunny's serene smile. "There's nothing on there we don't already know. You're just stressing yourself out more." She gently pulled the phone from Alicia's hand and placed it face-down in the space between them.

"Put what away?" Asked Sergeant Hatter, turning to face them in the backseat as if this was a welcome distraction from his otherwise nervous thoughts.

"Private newscast," Bunny replied, motioning to the cellphone.

"The chopper above is capturing live video, if you want to stick your head out and wave," added Alicia.

"That's one way to go about it." A wicked grin shaped Hatter's lips, "Or I could always stick my—" The Major interrupted him with a pointed look.

"Enough chit-chat," Mace said dryly. "We'll be arriving at the entry point within the next few minutes."

They drove past a downtown that appeared as though it had been abandoned for years rather than a mere week. Streets were overrun by foliage. Overgrown shrubbery, vines, and trees took the place of street lights, stop signs, and lampposts. The scene was recognizable enough to be familiar, yet different enough to be unsettling.

Alicia was reminded of her favorite dystopian sci-fi series, and as if on some ironic cue, she watched in surprise as a deer and her fawn pranced gracefully through the remains of a shopping center in the early morning sunlight.

"Airmen are currently stationed at the rendezvous, monitoring growth and viability of entry. I'll confer with them upon arrival to secure final approval for our mission from Commander in Chief. While I do that, Sergeant Hatter will run point and oversee final preparations for entry with both Drs. White and Rivera." Mace made quick eye contact with both women through the rearview mirror. It was the first time the Major had addressed them directly. He'd seemed more likable prior to speaking. "Understood?"

Alicia refrained from rolling her eyes. "Yes, sir," the three replied in unison.

A short while later, Sergeant Hatter, Bunny, and Alicia stood facing the looming forest canopy, four packs lined before them along the ground. Sunlight cast long, foreboding shadows from the oversized trees, the grass beneath them still dewy in the cool morning fog. No matter the brightness, sunlight seemed incapable of penetrating the perpetual darkness within.

It was unnerving. This close, the forest truly seemed alive. Alicia's instincts objected as though she were standing before a hungry predator, jaws open. The trees along the edge of the canopy bowed forward, as if resisting some invisible force from deep within the forest. The rustling leaves and branches became a low growl to accompany quivering, sharpened fangs.

"I'm telling you," continued Hatter, crossing his arms, "he specifically said not to put one in his pack. Wouldn't wear one even if Delta hadn't already cleared entrance without protective gear."

Glad for the distraction, Alicia scoffed, hands on her waist. "Well, he can't be worried about looking silly. This is about safety. We know we're fine without the gear here at the entrance, but once we move past where we lost contact with Delta, who knows what we'll find?"

"Precisely," came the Major's smooth voice suddenly from behind them. In one graceful movement, he shouldered his pack and continued forward, never missing a beat. The others quickly followed suit, Alicia in rear.

"Who knows what we'll find, indeed. The protective gear not only obstructs audiovisual feedback, but also restricts movement and severely lowers reaction time," he explained matter-of-factly. "Sergeant Hatter and I, have been trained to prepare for the unexpected to the extent possible, of course. Nonetheless, I welcome the advantage of not donning unnecessary gear that would otherwise only serve to hinder my performance in maintaining your and Dr. White's safety, particularly when facing an entirely novel scenario."

"Major," Alicia began after a moment, "I—"

"No need to apologize, Dr. Rivera. Let's get moving, we've got ground to cover."

Her eyes blazed furiously. "I wasn't going to apologize," she muttered through gritted teeth. Bunny placed a calming hand on her shoulder, and Alicia was immediately aware of how tense she'd become.

"It would still be prudent to take one for yourself, should it become necessary," she continued, after a mindful breath.

"I appreciate your concern, doctor, but I assure you, I'll be fine without the gear." Mace walked on through the densely packed trees, never looking back. End of conversation.

Hatter shrugged and offered Alicia and Bunny a sheepish smile before following closely behind the Major, hand resting stiffly on the holster of his handgun.

Purposefully falling a few steps behind, Bunny winked at Alicia and whispered, "Don't worry, I packed an extra."

"Let's see if he earns it." Before following the others into the fog, Alicia glanced at the sunny morning behind them, hoping it wouldn't be her last.

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localbrisbaneplumber · 5 years ago

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What You Need to Know About Hot Water Systems Adelaide

Hot water is a requirement in every Australian home, which makes hot water systems a necessity in every household. There is a variety of hot water systems that are available for purchase in Australia. Read this article to get a better idea of the right hot water system Adelaide to purchase for your abode.

Different types of hot water systems Adelaide

Natural gas – can be used in both storage water heaters and continuous flow systems. Natural gas systems are rated according to their energy efficiency and come in both internal and external models. Gas storage heaters have a smaller capacity than off-peak electric ones as they can heat the water up at any time of the day or night as opposed to within a certain time period only. For more information see gas hot water systems.

Off peak electricity – has similar running costs to a natural gas system but is only available where the hot water system has a storage capacity of 160 liters or more. The hot water is generally heated overnight for use throughout the day. It cannot be used by continuous flow systems and is available for both internal and external use.

Solar energy – can provide up to eighty percent of your hot water free of charge, making it a very environmentally friendly option. They are the cheapest systems to operate but do have a high initial purchase price. All solar hot water systems come with a “booster” source of power (such as gas or electric) to provide hot water during times when there is little sun. Mains pressure and constant pressure is available. For more information see solar hot water systems.

Peak electricity – is used for electric continuous flow units and storage water heaters that are smaller than 160 liters in capacity. They can be expensive to run but are very popular in areas where space is limited such as in units and apartments. For more information see electric hot water systems.

LPG – is used in areas where natural gas is not available. It is suitable for both continuous flow and storage hot water systems.

Solid fuels – this includes wood, coal, briquettes and so forth, so the cost of the fuels can vary widely. Solid fuels can be used on their own or in conjunction with off peak electricity or solar in constant pressure systems. They cannot be used with mains pressure systems unless a heat exchange is used and cannot be used in continuous flow systems.

Heat pumps – is high efficiency and uses around seventy percent less electricity than other electric hot water systems. They work by extracting heat from the atmosphere using a refrigerant gas and a compressor and using that heat to heat water stored in a tank at ground level.

The benefits of hiring a Hot Water System Adelaide Specialist

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Advising on a suitable hot water system Adelaide

Installation (see hot water system installation)

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Ensure that the system comes with a warranty, and that the supplier is willing to provide installation in a reasonable time-frame. It is also useful if your supplier can provide emergency repairs or be able to direct you to someone that does.

The best method to find out about a hot water system is to get in touch with a professional plumbing business such as Adelaide 24 Hour Plumbing

If you have an issue with a blocked drain Adelaide or hot water system Adelaide, then you need a 24-hour plumber Adelaide or an emergency plumber Adelaide to service you. You might also reach out to a gas plumber Adelaide to help you. Its important that you have a plumber Adelaide or an Adelaide Plumber and Adelaide plumbers you can trust. Plumbers Adelaide offer excellent service. We also specialize in drain camera Adelaide and carbon monoxide testing Adelaide and plumbing Adelaide services.

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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How Legal Weed Is Killing America’s Most Famous Marijuana Farmers

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-legal-weed-is-killing-americas-most-famous-marijuana-farmers/

How Legal Weed Is Killing America’s Most Famous Marijuana Farmers

EUREKA, Calif. — On a sunny day in the spring, Thomas Mulder walked through his greenhouse, down a narrow path between two long, knee-high, wooden planters. In a few weeks, the greenhouse would be full of marijuana plants a foot or two high—indica-sativa hybrid strain Sour G, or White Tahoe Cookies with its characteristic golden hairs around the flower. A few more months and the plants would reach Mulder’s shoulders. But at that moment, the planters were empty as Mulder gestured with his hands to show how tall his crop would eventually become. Mulder has three greenhouses that sit on this flat patch of land deep in the mountains of Humboldt County. This part of his farm is accessible only by a steep, newly pavedroad that passes in and out of Humboldt Redwoods State Park, and giant trees crowd so close on either side of the property that you don’t even notice Mulder’s farm until the last bend of the road.

It’s pretty obvious why Mulder’s parents chose this place in the late 1970s to grow marijuana. Back then, camouflage ropes pulled tall branches over the clearing to hide the illegal but highly prized crop from Drug Enforcement Administration helicopters; huckleberry bushes grew among marijuana for extra concealment. Now, the array of bright white buildings would be easily spotted from above, that is if anyone was up there looking. The berry bush camouflage came out when Mulder bought this land a decade ago when California became the first state to approve medical marijuana.

Story Continued Below

Since then, as the stigma around marijuana has evaporated in a grassroots legalization movement that has swept the nation, Mulder’s farm has thrived in a three-county region known as the Emerald Triangle that has become to high-grade cannabis what Napa Valley is to wine—a tentpole of the Northern California economy. In an ideal season, Mulder’s farm produces about 1,000 pounds of cannabis, an amount that should earn him $1.5 million. After taxes, fees and farm operating expenses, Mulder can expect about $100,000 in net income. It has afforded him enough money to own his own house and set aside a retirement account and a college fund for his children.No longer an outlaw like his parents, Mulder is the very picture of middle-class respectability. He has served on the local school board for a decade without anyone batting an eye at how he earns a living.

In theory, business should have gotten better for Mulder after voters passed Proposition 64 in 2016, legalizing recreational marijuana. But the opposite has happened.

The costs of shifting his farm from California’s loosely regulated medical marijuana program into the stringent legal market have been high. Mulder actually lost money last year—the worst loss his farm has ever experienced—and he had to dip into his retirement fund and his children’s college fund to keep from closing. A few years ago, his retirement savings totaled over $80,000. After last year, he says, he has about $500 left.

Mulder is not alone. As industrial-sized growers in places like California’s famously fertile Central Valley have flooded the market, the price of legal marijuana has plummeted by more than half. An array of upfront fees and stricter regulations, combined with a lack of access to bank loans, are all reasons farmers in Humboldt and neighboring Mendocino and Trinity counties say they can’t afford to remain in the legal market. Only 2,200 farmers applied for cannabis licenses last year, according to California NORML,compared with the estimated 30,000 or more growers who existed in the Emerald Triangle pre-legalization. It’s hard to know how many of the rest are continuing to grow in the illicit market. An estimated 10 percent of growers have simply shut down. Some expect that number to rise fivefold by year’s end.

“The regulatory climate in California and the cost of all of those regulations certainly does make the prospect of a viable small farm really small,” says Trillian Schroeder, a cannabis farm consultant in Humboldt County.

In effect, legal marijuana is doing what the DEA’s war on drugs never managed to accomplish. Some observers fear the era of cannabis in Humboldt—legal and otherwise—is over.

Mulder voted for Prop 64, reasoning that the initial proposals—like a one-acre cap on licenses—were designed to help farmers. But now he’s not so sure it was the right call.

“I don’t want to see more victims of the war on drugs,” Mulder says. “But now it’s different because it’s a different war—it’s pricing [farmers] out.”

“I wish I could go back in time,” he says. “Maybe not pass Prop 64.”

***

When medical marijuana was first legalizedwith the passage of the Compassionate Care Act in 1996, some of Humboldt’s farmers were wary of coming forward and registering with a government they had seen for so long as the enemy. Eventually, though, many came out of the illicit market to grow in licensed medical collectives. The medical industry that existed from 1996 to 2016 had some regulations—there was a limit to the number of plants a farm could grow, for example, set by each county individually. Farmers had to apply for a license and pay taxes to the state. And in the late 2000s, some towns—such as Oakland—started putting local sales taxes in place. But in the spectrum of regulatory oversight, it was a modest burden.

Under Prop 64, though, cannabis has become what some in the industry call “the most regulated crop in the nation’s most regulated state.” Each plant must be meticulously monitored through a central system called “track and trace.” There are separate state and county regulations, and the county requirements—from additional taxes to environmental impact studies—can be drastically different for farmers in different parts of the state. And where farmers once paid just income and maybe some sales taxes on their medical marijuana, they are now paying taxes before they grow, after they grow, and after they sell.

Zoning certificates and water board fees can cost $3,000 to $5,000, but the biggest costs come in environmental and structural changes to the property. Many Humboldt farms lie in the mountains, deliberately out of the way to avoid easy detection, at the end of long dirt roads that are hard to navigate. Paving the dirt roads alone can cost over $100,000.

Some farms have discovered their land includes habitat for endangered species like the spotted owl. When these farmers apply for construction permits to meet Prop 64 requirements like paved roads or new, California Department of Agriculture-compliant processing facilities, they are told they need to wait two years for an environmental impact study, certifying the proposed changes won’t disturb endangered habitat. The farmers are caught in a bureaucratic trap: If they don’t build immediately, the farms won’t be considered compliant, and therefore may not receive a new license to keep growing.

Other farms have man-made geological features, such as culverts, that were put in by previous tenants—often loggers. Under state and local regulations, these man-made features have to be returned to a more ecologically friendly form, a process which also requires engineering fees and construction costs to repair.

And for farms that have good existing infrastructure on good land, there are still high taxes and fees they have to pay in addition to their startup costs. The “canopy tax” is a county tax on the space in which a farmer will grow his crop—levied before anything is grown. Last year, it was $1 per square foot. Many farmers grow multiple plots of 5,000 or 10,000 square feet, so canopy taxes can quickly reach the tens of thousands of dollars. The cultivation tax, meanwhile, is a state tax levied on harvested marijuana before it is sold, regardless of whether it sells. Neither the canopy or cultivation taxes supplant state or federal income taxes, which also have to be paid on the revenue from cannabis sales.

For Mulder, the cultivation tax on dried cannabis flower last year was $148 per pound. After paying it, a modest $15,000 profit turned into an $80,000 loss.

“It’s death by a thousand cuts,” says Schroeder, the farm consultant.

Some of these farmers feel that they are being held to standards intended for “big ag” that don’t make sense for small family farms. “You know, $20,000 to a big avocado farm is absolutely nothing,” Schroeder says. “But you put that same cost onto a small three-person farm, it’s a big hurdle for them to overcome.”

One Humboldt County farmer, Wendy Kornberg, says she cannot hire temporary workers to help her harvest her crop because she would need a bathroom on her property that is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Getting a cement truck up her hill to construct such a bathroom without paving the road first is impossible, and she won’t have the money to pave until harvest is over. So her 70-year-old mother has been helping out, instead.

Kornberg, a second-generation cannabis farmer, has used most of her savings trying to meet state and local licensing requirements.

She applied for a permit to construct a rainwater pond to water her crops. The building and planning department said her papers were in order, and all she needed was her county cannabis license in order to build. She waited eight months for that license. When it was issued, it included extra requirements for the pond, raising the cost from $20,000 to as high as $100,000. She had to scrap the pond altogether, and the lack of water meant she grew and harvested only about 10-15 percent of her annual yield, even after paying $53,000 in canopy taxes and fees.

“If you were a corn farmer, and you were only cultivating 100 acres of corn, and you’re suddenly told, ‘OK, you can only cultivate 10 acres of corn,’ you’re basically going to be bankrupt,” Kornberg said. “It’s ridiculous to think a farm can operate at 10 percent.”

***

In other industries,startup costs or unexpected regulation changes are funded by small-business loans. In the marijuana industry, however, access to loans is almost impossible to come by. Cannabis’ status as a Schedule I drug means the federal government considers it as dangerous as heroin, and consequently banks won’t open accounts, issue loans, or open lines of credit for businesses in the industry. Farmers can’t apply for crop insurance, either, or file for bankruptcy if their farm collapses.

There are some loans available, but they are high-interest private loans or venture capital—both of which many farmers don’t trust.

Mariah Gregori says she could really use a loan. Gregori spent 20 years building her homestead in the mountains with her partner and their children. But when she began the process of switching her farm into the regulated market, she found that the costs of making her land compliant were more than her farm was worth—and far more than she had the money to pay.

So Gregori, 41, and her partner drained their savings and bought a new piece of land, on a flat patch near a river. There, they are building a new cannabis farm from the ground up, gambling that the costs of bringing this flat land up to code will be cheaper than wading through the regulatory minefield her original farm presented.

Just trying to build and permit the same water tank she has at her homestead on the new farm plot is promising to cost Gregori over $50,000, and Gregori says she cannot get a line of credit to help build her water supply and make other improvements to the new property. She also can’t write off business expenses like $50,000 water tank projects on her federal taxes.

“I mean this is my life … it’s the only thing we’ve ever worked for,” Gregori says. “We’ve done it since out of high school.”

***

The California state governmentis not oblivious to the fact that taxes and regulations have overburdened the state’s cannabis industry. In fact, it’s suffering too.

State-wide revenue from cannabis taxes in 2018—the industry’s first year under full legalization—met only 30 percent of projections set by the state. California projected $1 billion in tax revenue, but at the end of 2018 had seen only $345 million, according to the Orange County Register.

On the local level, Humboldt County decided this year to charge its farmers the canopy taxes after the harvest rather than before growing, so farmers can pay from their revenue. And in Sacramento, a law called the “Temporary Cannabis Tax Reduction Bill” was introduced by state Rep. Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) and California State Treasurer Fiona Ma, but did not pass out of committee. Their bill would have temporarily suspended some taxes for three years, with the hopes of giving farmers as much capital as possible to get on their feet, and Bonta plans to reintroduce the bill next year.

Meanwhile, California’s Senate did pass a bill that will create a state-chartered bank to offer bank accounts to cannabis busineses, though Bonta says it will not issue loans or lines of credit. Ultimately, he says, banking is the purview of the federal government. Congress is working on the issue of cannabis banking right now, with the SAFE Banking Act legislation. The bill passed the House Financial Services Committee in April with a bipartisan vote of 45-15.

Democrat Representative Jared Huffman’s California district includes Humboldt County, and he is a co-sponsor of the House bill. “Criminalizing banking for businesses that are legal under state law is completely absurd,” Huffman said in a statement, adding the SAFE act has overwhelming public support.

While it enjoys widespread support in the U.S. House—165 members from both parties have already signed on to co-sponsor the bill, and it is backed by the American Banking Association—its passage isn’t guaranteed in the Senate. Since pushing through a legalization of hemp (the nonpsychoactive cousin of cannabis that is being used as a substitute crop in tobacco country) in the 2018 Farm Bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he will not bring a cannabis legalization bill to the floor. If McConnell doesn’t block a vote in the full Senate, though, the banking bill has support on both sides of the aisle, including five Republicans, among them Rand Paul of Kentucky, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Cory Gardner of Colorado, as well as Democrats such as Kamala Harris of California and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and lawmakers from states where cannabis is still illegal, such as Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.).

Should that federal bill not pass, California’s lawmakers don’t yet have a solution—though some say they are working on one. Some have proposed using cryptocurrency or credit unions.

Meanwhile, though, Humboldt County’s economy has been hit hard by cannabis legalization. Humboldt was the only county that lost sales tax revenue last year—dropping 2 percent from 2017 to 2018, or $424,000. In Eureka, it dropped 3 percent. Meanwhile, California, over the same period, saw a 4 percent increase.

“For us, it was such an important part of our economy that [legalization] really has been an upheaval to the way we’ve been doing business for decades,” says Mayor Susan Seaman of Eureka, Humboldt’s largest town.

Seaman says Eureka has seen a marked decrease in sales tax in the past year, as farmers spend their money on fees and regulations rather than in town. This change in spending has led some noncannabis businesses in Humboldt County to close, while others have dramatically shifted their inventory in order to stay afloat.

Humboldt County’s Small Business Development Center did an unscientific survey of its members in June 2018, and of those who answered, only 28 percent believed business would be better in 2018 than it was in 2016. In the same survey, more business owners selected “changes in the cannabis industry” as the reason for the economic decline than any other factor.

Over the past three decades, cannabis farmers in Humboldt put their income back into the local economy, buying clothes and home goods, machinery and cars, and eating in local restaurants.

In Eureka, sales tax revenue decreased in the past year despite cannabis manufacturers like Los Angeles-based Papa & Barkley bringing over 100 jobs to the area. And should the small cannabis farms go under, Seaman worries the new jobs won’t stay.

Annie Bignon, 37, owned a boutique clothing store in Garberville called Indigo Denim Bar. In 2017, Indigo Denim Bar saw a 30-percent drop in revenue. July 2018 was the tipping point, when her shop registered 60 percent less revenue than the previous July.

She and her husband—who owns a construction business—both grew up in Humboldt. “It was a thriving community, with people who had the disposable income,” Bignon said. But in November 2018, they decided to leave Garberville and open her store elsewhere, before they lost everything. Now, they and their two kids live four hours south, in Sebastopol. Every time she talks about it, Bignon starts crying. Her family was one of five from the same block who moved in the past year. Two families moved to northern Humboldt, but the other three—including Bignon’s—left the county entirely. “One of my friends said ‘Who’s going to still be here?’”

On his farm on the backside of the mountain, Thomas Mulder continues to lose sleep over farm expenses. But he has a good reason to keep going, he says. His son Tyson, 8, loves to grow things. While regulations keep Tyson out of the cannabis plots, he attentively listens to everything his father teaches him about running a farm—from creating healthy soil to road upkeep. He helps out wherever he can, filling in potholes on the road and working with vegetables and trees in his own garden space.

Like other second-generation farmers, Mulder believes in the greater Humboldt community and wants to see it continue to flourish. Cannabis farmers have done a lot of good in Garberville, he says, like donating money to refurbish the local school. Now, as his daughter nears graduation from high school, he wants to make sure there is a future for her and for her brother in Humboldt County.

“I’m not saying my kids have to join the industry,” Mulder says. “But I want to make sure … that I’ll have something to pass on to them, and this farm will still be around.”

#Farmers #Foreign #marijuana #Politics

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davidblaska · 6 years ago

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Blaska put 438 miles on a Harley Davidson Sportster (the Iron 1200 model) in four days of riding from San Franciso north through Marin County to wine country in Sonoma and Napa Counties last week (4/9-13/19). (We began our story here.)

Sonoma Highway, aka California Hwy 12, is that county’s main winery thoroughfare, albeit more spread out than neighboring Napa County’s California Hwy 29 cheek by jowl vineyards and bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Indeed, that is the particular beauty of this place: the neatly tended agriculture mixed and matched with the wild of the forested mountains. Interspersed with modest red barns and opulent tasting rooms. All gardened with a profusion of blooming flowers, azaleas, wisteria, midnight blue lobelia, all manner of succulents, roses, and my favorite, the orange California poppies that grow wild here. We saw no tulips or daffodils.

The HD Sportster Iron 1200 on Mt. Veeder Road, Napa County

Temperatures were consistently in the high 60s except for a cloudy and cool Thursday, which dictated a day to visit the tasting rooms with the lovely Lisa. A culinary note: even the hamburgers come with a side salad of fresh greens with a light vinaigrette. Eating healthy is a phobia here.

So is exercise. No matter how steep the climb, there were bicyclists as gaunt as Ethiopian refugees churning up the hillsides, noses down, helmets just above the handlebars.

Trees here were allowed to grow right up to the sides of the roads; few side roads have shoulders, which makes almost every road a scenic byway.

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Day One threw us west toward the Pacific Ocean and California Hwy 1. It’s cooler out there, windier, fewer trees, more bald mountains. We drove through Bodega Bay — stopped at the successor restaurant to the one in which Hitchcock’s “Birds” was filmed (the original burned down). Then on to Jenner, five miles north.

I asked the proprietor of a modest eatery on a cliff overlooking the ocean (great portabello mushroom sandwich) what was the town’s principal business. She answered “bird watching.” Hitchcock chose wisely.

The way back took us over California Hwy 116, as twisty as a twizzler through majestic California redwoods so close to the pavement one could reach out and touch them, save for an instinct for self-preservation. The towns along the way — places like Monte Rio and Duncans Mills — are little more than a fire department and a tavern, unpretentious as a chicken dinner fund raiser.

The road parallels the Russian River, which is its own viticultural area (much like Medoc in Bordeaux). Korbel brandy and sparkling wine and Rodney Strong are vinted here.

The following day I traveled east across the Mayacamas mountains along Trinity Road. More twists combined with a crumbled road surface turned my knuckles white underneath the fingerless leather gloves. Where I could take my eyes off the next blind curve I marveled at the ingenuity of building mega-homes this far up; some of the driveways had to have been 20 degree-rises or more.

on California Hwy 1

Trinity Road took the HD Iron 1200 to the more manageable Mt. Veeder Road and ultimately to the Silverado Trail, well into Napa County. On a whim, veered east onto Highway 128 (aka Sage Canyon Road), maybe my favorite. Wide and freshly poured pavement, few signs of human intervention (beyond the dam on Lake Hennessey) and almost zero traffic. Nirvana!

Pulled off the side of the road to sit on a hillside to hear the rushing stream well below, largely hidden by spruce and oaks. The only thing missing was my lovely Lisa, who just doesn’t ride.

Her choice and mine. Blaska postponed the wine tastings until after each drive but there is an element of danger in motorcycling. Mistakes are less forgiven, nothing between you and the idiot in the next lane but a layer of leather, no seat belts or airbags.

All part of the thrill of life

Riding the vines of California; Part #2 Blaska put 438 miles on a Harley Davidson Sportster (the Iron 1200 model) in four days of riding from San Franciso north through Marin County to wine country in Sonoma and Napa Counties last week (4/9-13/19).

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pressurewashersconnect · 6 years ago

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Trane-Santa Rosa California-Heating & AC Dealer

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As a supplier of quality heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment and parts from leading manufacturers, we have serviced HVAC professionals for more than 30 years. Our systems can be found in prominent residential, commercial, institutional and industrial buildings. Through equipment and parts sales, training and marketing services, Specialty A/C Products can ensure contractors and their customers create efficient and comfortable living and work spaces in Alameda, Contra Costa, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma and Trinity counties. Central controllers and most terminal unit controllers are programmable, meaning the direct digital control program code may be customized for the intended use. The program features include time schedules, setpoints, controllers, logic, timers, trend logs, and alarms. The unit controllers typically have analog and digital inputs that allow measurement of the variable (temperature, humidity, or pressure) and analog and digital outputs for control of the transport medium (hot/cold water and/or steam). Digital inputs are typically (dry) contacts from a control device, and analog inputs are typically a voltage or current measurement from a variable (temperature, humidity, velocity, or pressure) sensing device. Digital outputs are typically relay contacts used to start and stop equipment, and analog outputs are typically voltage or current signals to control the movement of the medium (air/water/steam) control devices such as valves, dampers, and motors. Here is a full list of video credits http://broadcaster.beazil.net/public/credits/youtube/videos/253681 . Your guide is here http://specialty-ac.net . Santa Rosa is home to the museum that celebrates famed cartoonist Charles M. Schulz’s life and work. Note the colorful street sculptures of Peanuts characters throughout the city. On the museum’s campus is Snoopy’s Home Ice, the Redwood Empire Ice Arena. Adjacent is the new Children’s Museum of Sonoma County. Every Trane product is designed down to every detail and rigorously tested for reliability and durability. While other manufacturers build their products from the same ‘pool’ of parts available to anyone, we make it a point to be uniquely better, innovative and always looking to the future. To do that, we have to design, build, test, and rebuild some of our own parts. We know they work because we push them well beyond the industry standards, making sure they match the reliability people expect when they own a Trane. Join us at https://www.facebook.com/SpecialtyACProducts/ . Trane offers a broad range of energy-efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems; dehumidifying and air cleaning products; service and parts support; advanced building controls and financing solutions. Trane systems and services have leading positions in premium commercial, residential, institutional and industrial markets; a reputation for reliability, high quality and product innovation; and a powerful distribution network. Large commercial systems designed, manufactured and maintained by Trane provide the heating, ventilation and air conditioning for prominent buildings on every continent. We custom design solutions for each building and our substantial services business gives us the resources to partner with each customer for the life of a building.

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locochronic-blog · 6 years ago

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Cue the helicopters.

Federal agents soar high above California’s northern coast like eagles with a bird’s eye view of this multi-billion dollar black market marijuana industry. They see a symmetrically beautiful Yin Yang of rough blue sea and rolling green hills. Rhythmic waves crash like percussions on the shore ‘n rugged, mountainous terrains mimic the ups and downs of hill life for weed growers and trimmers, locals and transplants alike.

The task force chopper in the air slightly descends, losing sight of its moving target as a line of cars disappears under a Redwood forest canopy that is too dense.

Launch the drones.

Agents rely on monitoring live stream footage from their remote controlled drones as the little fed cameras swoop closer to the ground, able to finagle through trees with ease. Able to stalk this criminal brigade mobbin through the woods.

Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity Counties are collectively known as the Emerald Triangle for ranking highest in Cannabis production throughout the United States for all of time… Don’t quote nothin tho. These counties have been putting in work since before getting high was this cool… and with all the recent advancements of this underground industry, getting high has never felt so sensational.

This that LoCo Chronic, sucka.

Majestic rays of love and light filter through giant, ancient trees as the dusty mountain road begins to narrow on a summer’s eve. From the sun, rays of light travel a hundred million miles in under ten minutes and still must reposition around these mystical Redwood beings.

Beings wider than the SUVs that maneuver amongst them through roads ’n coves.

Fallen beings crafted into big castles.

It’s the green Wild West, baby.

Primitive ferns carpet the forest floor and rattle as the ground rumbles out of nowhere. Ballerinas of Godly mist percolate above vines and mossy rocks, dancing with mountain lions, bobcats, bald eagles and bears. One might imagine Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World” playing merrily in the background.

Shit ain’t sweet out here tho, so Tupac’s “High Til I Die” gets progressively louder with its deep bass and quick pace. People are really out here mobbin in the middle of nowhere.

“Smokin chronic muthafuckas, causing ruckus”, Tupac’s distinctly sexy voice stabs at the tranquility of surrounding nature. “It’s the last of the drank pull over, can’t hear a damn thing sober. High til I die, loced til they smoke me, the shit don’t stop til my casket drop… I’m high til I die…”

Oversized wheels race by, one set of beefy black rims after the other as five or six off-road capable trucks and SUVs cruise swiftly through the woods. The racket approaches Wyatt and Chaska's ranch rapidly, reverberating sounds of music throughout the hills, causing critters to scatter at once, with chills.

Rabbits and deer steer clear.

For growers and trapstars, summer in Humboldt is when all goes well, or, well, you’re fucked. And the drought ain’t over. Won’t be anytime soon. All this heat and wildfire smoke is a bitch, it’s making some hill workers go crazy.

“I know the feds watchin!” Chaska shouts above the music playing in the car, “Why else they circlin round here on a Sunday? Can't be no dang electric company!”

Chaska is co-owner of the grow-op and acts as both the armed guard and the DJ in the passenger seat. His buzz cut glistens with sweat on this hot August day and he wears a couple gold chains that contradict his country boy demeanor yet reinstate his unpredictable priorities. He also wears his machine gun like a seatbelt.

A gorgeous, soft spoken Alicia Keys look-a-like named Aura drives with one hand, adjusting the rearview mirror with the other to be sure of what she sees.

“We’ve got visitors!” Aura warns.

She feels alert and refreshed, refusing to put the A/C on anything other than high while she is behind the wheel. Curls poppin, dancing with the air that blows in their direction. Her beaded charm bracelets jingle over bumps and potholes as she transports a load of workers to the farm. Her favorite and most unique charm on her wrist was decorated by her son Carmelo after his last day of Kindergarten a couple months ago. He painted a beautiful rendition of her head and hair’s silhouette onto a plain wooden coin and she looks even more like a Goddess through the eyes of her child.

Aura is a mother, a college student and a bartender who hosts karaoke every Thursday night. With a demeanor so sweet, nobody would believe the lifestyle she truly lives… Not that she talks much about herself to strangers anyways.

Aura and Chaska teamed up to drive and guard the last car in the criminal convoy today. The goal of this backup squad is to deter cops and crooks, by any means necessary, from following the rest of the gangsta fleet of guards and workers up to Chaska and his brother Wyatt’s weed farm.

Rose turns around from the middle row of the overly lifted SUV and peaks through the tinted back window. She finds herself at eye level with a couple steadily approaching drones and instantly snaps around to face front, paranoid about having her face on camera. She pulls her long, wavy hair into a sloppy bun and throws on a black hoodie to cover the distinct tattoos painted preciously on her arms.

The drones stream footage up to agents in the helicopter, revealing a line of pimped out trucks and SUVs all painted forest matte green so deep they look black at night. Each whip is equipped with massive all-terrain tires, heavily tinted windows, spotlights ’n grille guards.

Incidentally, all the doors and windows of this brigade are also bulletproof. Some markings decorate the exterior of a couple cars like souvenirs from upset shooters whose bullets never made it to the person riding shotgun.

Ironic.

Drivers, armed guards and over a dozen blindfolded passengers bump up the mountain on the hottest day in years. A sunny Humboldt summer that’s hot with the cops, too.

“Yeeee”, Chaska haws as he pops a magazine into his modified gun and loads the chamber, “I’m sher glad I done chose to git in your vehicle today, Miss Aura. Now open that sunroof for me, if you be so kind”.

Aura is Chaska’s sister-in-law, though she and his brother Wyatt split up a year ago. Wyatt waits at the ranch for the convoy of cars to pull up, caring for Carmelo along with other little kids and making lunch for the guards who stayed with them for the day.

Chaska and Wyatt look similar but act totally different. They are muscular and healthy, half Portuguese half Native American with a natural tan to their skin year round. They could pass as twins despite their different personalities and hairstyles. Wyatt is younger yet wiser and he flaunts his Native roots with long, silky black hair he keeps tied back while working. Chaska is a couple years older and keeps his hair short as if he’s about to deploy with the militia.

Chaska acts so savage and redneck it’s comical, considering his familial upbringing surrounded by countless tribal elders guiding him in the right direction. Soon as him and Wyatt’s folks died Chaska quit attending ceremonies, quit showing respect to food he hunts and quit following advice from his tribe. As much as Wyatt becomes enlightened, Chaska becomes equally as dark and twisted. Instead of going to group gatherings, dances and prayers, a young Chaska would disappear for days at a time to camp in the woods. He can drive every single back road that stretches north, south, east and west in the Emerald Triangle blindfolded. He can survive for months alone in the wilderness.

And he can kill anything that moves without feeling a drop of remorse.

Aura presses a button on the dash and the sunroof slides back like a door to an action packed movie. Chaska takes off his shirt, ties it around his face and throws on a baseball cap leaving only a slither of his eyes as evidence in a potential case. In one fluid, almost rehearsed movement he places a hand on the roof of the car and thrusts himself upwards til he is standing on the passenger seat with his gun toting in the breeze. He switches the safety off and steadies his aim amidst such dusty, rugged curves in the road.

Agents in the air monitor the cameras that lag only a second or two behind real time. They see a masked figure pop up out of nowhere and call through their radios that there is what appears to be an M4 aimed directly at their pricey cop toys. Orders from base are given to hold the drones back a few yards and begin swerving them from left to right on this winding mountain cut through.

Turn those fuckers off.

Distance and swerves are no match for Chaska’s tactical moves as he holds down the trigger and sprays in one sweeping motion. With a shot to the brain of each robot, footage is immediately ceased, leaving nothing but fuzzy gray connections up on the helicopters split screen.

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cbdhn4-blog · 7 years ago

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GROWING PAINS: CAN SUSTAINABLE FARMERS SURVIVE LEGALIZATION?

Part 3 of our 3-part series: Green Rush Blues: California Cannabis After Legalization

BY ANGELA BACCA ON JANUARY 29, 2018

Securing local and state licenses to cultivate cannabis is costly

The California counties of Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity, which comprise the Emerald Triangle, emerged as the epicenter of domestic cannabis cultivation in the late 1970s and early '80s. After the Golden State legalized medical marijuana in 1996, the nascent cannabis industry spread throughout much of Northern California's remote regions and into the Central Valley. But today anxiety is high in weed country, which desperately needs the industry to survive.

The cost and risks of coming into compliance with county ordinances and state laws has deterred a lot of the Emerald Triangle's underground growers from choosing the path to legitimacy. With a larger and more lucrative black market beckoning outside of California, many cannabis farmers have opted to continue operating outside the law by exporting their product.

In order to become a licensed grower in California, there are various agencies one must seek approval from. One has to take all the necessary steps to obtain local permits (including payment for legal and licensing fees); register fingerprints with the state Department of Justice; submit proof of compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA); submit cultivation, business and environmental plans, proof of ownership or right to use the cultivation space, any streambed or water alteration plans; implement a technically complex track-and-trace system; get a seller's permit from the state, and more.

Securing local and state licenses to cultivate cannabis is costly. And even after small growers pay for the property improvements, lawyers, architects, land use and permitting experts, and licensing fees, many will find themselves taxed out of existence.

Under California's new tax scheme, growers are taxed by the state at a rate of $148 per pound of cannabis flower and $44 per pound of cannabis leaves. In many places, growers pay an additional tax to the city or county of $25 per square foot of garden space.

Costs cannot simply be passed onto the consumer. Customers-both medical and recreational-are already being squeezed at the register. The state has imposed a 15 percent excise tax on all cannabis products. Several cities and counties have imposed an additional local tax that's as high as 15 percent. California sales and use tax, which ranges from 7.5% to 10%, is then applied not just to the retail cost, but to the excise tax as well (in other words the excise tax is taxed).

What's more, cannabis businesses may be penalized an additional ten percent if they pay their quarterly tax installments in cash!

Given that banks aren't supposed to service federally illegal marijuana companies, cash is the only viable option for the cannabis industry in California at this point.

The Los Angeles Times estimates the high rate of taxation could lead to retail prices going up 70 percent in 2018, thereby ensuring that the black market will persist as an alternative for cannabis consumers as well as producers.

Supply Glut

“The future of Mendocino is kinda bleak for small farmers,” says cannabis industry veteran Anna Foster. “The way the regulations are being set up, it isn't helping them compete.”

The challenges facing Mendocino farmers, according to Foster, are magnified by inconsistent county and city rules across the state and the current supply glut that is causing a sharp decline in per-pound prices. Taxes do not adjust with the price the supply is sold at.

The 2017 fall harvest brought the lowest prices in the legal medical market yet, with some growers saying they are unable to move even their top shelf at a break-even price. It is typical for growers to wait until post-harvest prices start to rise again before moving their product, but many are expressing concern they won't be able to move it at all.

Concerned about the adverse environmental impact of Green Rush grow-ops, Mendocino and Humboldt have implemented measures to limit the size of gardens and the number of cultivation licenses given to those who were in the area before legalization. This approach, however, has made it very difficult for the region's responsible growers to compete with better funded, large-scale industrial farms in other parts of California and the booming black market.

In Mendocino, for example, the largest garden size allows for a total of 22,000 square feet (including walkways and spaces not utilized for growing). A few hours south in Salinas, the agricultural town best-known as the setting for John Steinbeck's novels, Monterey County regulations allow huge cannabis cultivation operations.

Harborside CEO Steve DeAngelo

Harborside Health Center, one of the largest and highest-grossing cannabis dispensaries in the world, recently shifted from sourcing most of its supply from smaller medical farmers and producers to its own 47-acre farming operation in Salinas.

“How are we going to be a weed county if we can't even grow a whole acre of cannabis?” asks Foster, who lives in the Mendocino town of Willits.

Foster fears that the un-level playing field will devastate Northern California's small cannabis farming communities. With the wholesale price of cannabis on the decline yet heavily taxed, some farmers “are looking at jobs outside of cannabis, because it's not profitable or sustainable,” she explained. “They have always been farmers, but now they have to be businesspeople. And they don't know how to be businesspeople because they've always been farmers.”

Looking for Work

Will Foster and his family

Foster grew up in the world of marijuana cultivation and activism before the Green Rush and has been employed in the cannabis industry for most of her life. Her father, Will Foster, was arrested in 1995 for growing cannabis in his Tulsa, Oklahoma, basement to treat his degenerative arthritis. In 1997, he was convicted and sentenced to 93 years in prison, generating national coverage and outrage. During Will's incarceration, Anna moved to Oakland, California, where she lived and worked with author/activist Ed Rosenthal and his wife Jane Klein, who ran a cannabis-oriented publishing company and other businesses affiliated with the early Bay Area medical marijuana movement.

More recently, Foster teamed up with Karen Byars, a longtime Emerald Triangle cannabis grower and advocate who has been hosting educational events to help the region's responsible actors transition into a legal, regulated industry.

Byars relocated from Amarillo, Texas, to the Emerald Triangle in 1990 to participate in the Redwood Summer protests that sought to disrupt the logging industry and protect the disappearing old-growth redwood trees the region is famous for. Her work as an environmentalist exposed her to the underground cannabis farming community during Operation Green Sweep, a federal crackdown on marijuana growers who sympathized with the “tree huggers.”

After the passage of proposition 215 in 1996, Byars began to cultivate medical marijuana with an all-women's collective in Mendocino's Round Valley. Two decades later, when cannabis was legalized for adult use, she and Foster organized a job fair, resume-building workshops, and other vocational development services to support the establishment and growth of stable industry businesses in the region.

In late 2017, their organization, Mendocino Cannabis Resource, hosted its first job fair. Over 600 people attended, twice the expected number. With just 16 vendors hiring farm laborers, managers, scientists, accountants and other workers, the demand for jobs clearly outweighed the supply. Half of the job seekers were locals, while others came from the eastern U.S. or as far away as Chile and China; most of them wanted to find a way to make money from growing marijuana.1

Small was Beautiful

In the past, when the cultivation scene was completely underground, successful growers would reinvest their money in small, local businesses – both by choice and because other kinds of investment required considerable illegal maneuvering. Growers spent their cash on community development, contributing to independent radio, local theater productions, and start-ups that doubled as community centers.

The good 'ol days

“It used to be that you kinda knew this guy's sound studio wasn't paying the bills,” Byars recalled, “but there was this cool place everyone had access to.”

Today, Byars is concerned that out-of-town land-grabbers and speculators betting on cannabis grows are extracting wealth from small communities in the Emerald Triangle without contributing much in return.

“People are coming up here and 'green rushing' these communities without knowing what they are doing,” she cautioned.

In the pre-legalization marijuana market, most of the money accrued to the growers. The price per pound peaked after the passage of 215. But as the medical market evolved into the post-prohibition commodity market, the economic focus has shifted from growing marijuana to processing, taxing, distributing and retailing it.

In post-prohibition California, new regulations siphon much of the profits from farmers to fill the state treasury. “People are treating growers like ATMs because they know all the money is in the weed. All the middlemen profit. The farmers and consumers lose,” said Foster.

Going Broke

New tax regulations are crippling some growers

Kevin Simmonds is a licensed contractor and cannabis cultivator who's been serving the Bay Area market since 2010. Based in Santa Rosa, he struggles with lifelong pain due to arthritis, which is why he started growing medical cannabis. Simmonds uses an indoor compartmentalized grow system so that he is perpetually harvesting fresh product for dispensaries every week.

But now Simmonds is also struggling with the costs of coming into compliance, the glut of growers, and the plunging price per pound – and he may not survive. It would be much easier for him to keep turning a profit if he chose to move his product on the black market, which he has no interest in doing.

“It's always been my intention to participate in whatever regulation scheme they come up with. This is it, I am stuck dealing with it and I am going broke,” says Simmonds.

To become compliant with the regulations that went into effect on Jan. 1, he had to invest nearly $100,000 in his indoor operation. He will be taxed per square foot of his garden's canopy by both the state and Sonoma County. Additionally, he had to front tens of thousands more to get state licensing. Meanwhile, his margins are shrinking fast as prices drop in the legal market. He is worried that with the low wholesale price, high taxes and black market competition, legalization could bankrupt him.

“I have some cost projections for the coming year, and it's going to be super tight. It is going to be a matter of if I can move all my product and have successful runs that yield well, every time. Without all those components, I will fail,” Simmonds confides.

Simmonds currently has three to four employees that tend the gardens and four full time trimmers relying on work from his operation. “What I am up against,” he emphasizes, “are some well-financed operations starting up, people who can afford to lose money for a good long time.”

He said if he must take a significant corporate buyout to survive, he would happily do so at this point.

“I was born with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. The prediction for me was that I would be on public assistance the rest of my life. Through [growing] cannabis, I was able to find a way to financially prosper and raise my kids. I put them through private schools and bought a house. All of these things would never have happened if it wasn't for the small business models created by [Prop 215, which established] the foundation for my ability to start with nothing and make something,” Simmonds explains. “Now if anyone wants to make something with cannabis, they have to come in with at least a million dollars.”

Beyond California: The National Export Market

Adam J. Smith

Adam Smith has seen this scenario play out before on a smaller but significant scale in Oregon. A longtime proponent of drug policy reform, Smith has been working both to save and promote responsible, locally-owned cannabis businesses in the Beaver State, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2014.2 Ultimately, the success of these farming communities may rest upon the ability of West Coast cannabis companies to export and sell product in a legal national market and beyond.

“It's desperately important that we end federal prohibition, that we allow export,” asserts Smith.

“Northern California, like Southern Oregon, is deeply dependent on the fact that those small farms have supported thousands of families and whole communities,” he explains. “And there is a very good chance, in California in particular, that [the regulators] just wipe that out. If the export market was available right now, those farms would have a chance through branding themselves nationally and internationally as 'Real California Cannabis,' which is the product of an authentic, generations-old Northern California cannabis culture.”

With the roll-out of legalization in Oregon, Smith quickly recognized how big outside investment could negatively impact local economies in cannabis-dependent regions. “Those out-of-state interests had more money and resources than the local industry, but we've had an industry here for generations. It is an indigenous industry. It's not Massachusetts with millionaires opening mega-grows.”

How can the indigenous cannabis industry in Northern California and Southern Oregon avoid being steamrolled by outside forces?

“With craft beer, if you don't support your local brewer he can sell beer to [out-of-state] markets,” Smith notes. “If you don't support your local cannabis growers, they go out of business or back to the black market.”

“California-grown” cannabis

Smith recently founded the Craft Cannabis Alliance (CCA), a membership association of cannabis businesses in Oregon that share a “commitment to an authentic craft cannabis industry that respects and serves people, place, planet and plant.” The goal of the CCA is to build an industry that benefits small producers in cannabis-reliant economies by defining and promoting “craft cannabis” and providing resources to businesses with aligned missions. Smith intends to work with growers from California and other legal states as well.

A Different Kind of Capitalism

“Oregon Cannabis has a global brand and people should know about it,” Smith explained. “When the walls [of federal prohibition] come down, if the shelves here are dominated by international and out-of-state companies, then that's who is going to own the export market, and we will never buy it back. We will just be a low wage factory for the enrichment of other places and other people. Even if it is grown here, if you are buying cannabis and it's owned by a Texas investment group or a Florida company or a Canadian company, you are just sending the profits out, bleeding money out of state, while we sort of give away our local industry. What do we do about that?”

Smith continues, “Our message is that we are not doomed to be in this sort of extractive capitalist model that will steal this from us or bleed this [region]. We can create and support an industry here, that is locally owned and where the money reverberates back through this economy. This is something that is worth saving and if we can bring in tourism to support this part of the industry, it can build communities, institutions and wealth here.”

Implementing sustainable growing practices

The CCA defines the craft cannabis industry around six basic tenets: clean product, sustainable growing methods, ethical employment practices, community engagement, substantial local ownership and “meaningful participation in the movement to end the drug war, not just opening up the next cannabis market - because otherwise you're just profiteering off of 80 years of ruined lives and destroyed communities, and that's not moral and it shouldn't be okay with consumers.”

As Smith sees it, the cannabis industry provides the “perfect vehicle to express a different kind of capitalism.” But steps need to be taken now at the federal level to stabilize the markets.

“This is why we have to tear down the federal walls as quickly as possible,” says Smith. “A lot of people are going to go out of business. If cannabis is allowed to be sucked into an extractive corporatist system, leaving people who care about deeper things on the fringes of this industry … it will not only be an economic disaster, it will be a cultural disaster.”

via: https://www.projectcbd.org/growing-pains-can-sustainable-farmers-survive-legalization

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