When the rain came

Our Thanksgiving was great, although the turkey was a little overdone. We had delicious turkey sandwiches last night on Dale’s homemade bread, so it couldn’t have been all that bad.

There was an incident involving the oven. Dale roasted a pork belly the night before, and apparently grease splattered, creating a lot of smoke when I was getting ready to put in the cheesecake. I had to turn on the fan and open windows. Luckily, it didn’t affect the food, and after the oven cooled, Dale wiped down the inside so we wouldn’t have a smokefest when he started cooking the turkey.

We didn’t argue about it, but I could tell he was annoyed that I was annoyed with smoke. He thinks I overreact, and that might be true, but I don’t see any advantage to embracing smoke and fire as a byproduct of cooking inside the home.

Dale went to bed early, but I stayed up watching the Downton Abbey movie. I love the series and felt like I was reunited with old friends – oh, look, there’s Anna! And Mr. Bates! And Mary’s hair … so chic. But all in all, it was pretty disappointing. I have this vision of the actors putting on their old costumes and laughing hysterically. As in, “Can you believe we’re getting paid to do this?”  

My pumpkin cheesecake was fantastic. I’m experimenting with freezer action. Once the pieces are firm, I’ll wrap them in plastic and put them in a tub or or add another layer of foil.

I am not a Christmas person, but I’m not going to get all grumpy about it, either. I’m just happy to be here. Dale is more into it than I am, but he doesn’t want to put up a tree until about a week before. However, if you don’t go soon, the trees are gone – especially with Thanksgiving coming right at the end of November this year.

Dale is not exactly methodical about getting things done, so I’m not saying a word. I’m hoping he procrastinates until there are no trees to be had. The only potential downside is my annual holiday tradition of drinking single malt scotch while he decorates the tree. I feel certain I could find another excuse to enjoy a wee bit of scotch, if the tree shortage should come to pass.

I finished all my books, and as it turns out, the library is open today! I’ve been avoiding crowds, but the library is reasonably safe. I suppose I’ll have to find something to wear other than jammies and head over there this afternoon, hopefully before the rain kicks in.

Yes, it’s California, but the rainy season is finally here, and it is quite chilly by my standards. I am proud to say I’ve walked about an hour every day. In terms of motivation, I had to dig deep, as I am such a wuus about the cold. But it was fine once I got started.

The rain and cold also affect my golf schedule – what Dale calls, “The Tour.” He usually asks me on Sunday what the tour schedule is this week. I didn’t play last week at all. I’m going to try and squeeze in a round early Tuesday. The rain is supposed to start in the afternoon. I welcome the rain, but I’m already sad about the unpredictability of winter golf.

When golf season is in full swing, I hardly bother with crafts projects. But now that the rainy season has started, I’ll resume my activities in the artist’s studio garage. I still have all the stuff for coasters, as well a piece of discarded fence I think will be interesting to play around with.

My little cannabis plant looks healthy, but it doesn’t seem to be growing much. I think it needs more light, so I caved and purchased an LED lamp. It should arrive today, and Dale said he would help me hang it – the guidelines suggest about one foot above the plant. For some reason, I was thinking of Robert Frost:

My little plant must think it queer to grow without a light source near.

Dale wants to take a turkey break today, but we have yet to discuss what we’ll have instead. I always make soup out of the carcass, so I’ll probably do that Sunday or Monday. Rain tonight, I think, and tomorrow looks like a washout.

I’m looking forward to next week, when everybody else goes back to work!

The 365-day weekend

We watched Office Space, which might be up there with Young Frankenstein for most times watched. I still love the scene where the consultant tells Peter he has been missing a lot of work lately.

Peter replies, “I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob.”

Ditto!

In the work world I used to inhabit, Thanksgiving was at least a four-day weekend. Sometimes I would take a few extra days of vacation to get the whole week off, but as I advanced in my career, that became harder to do. More money equaled less time off, and in the end, the 24/7 work culture motivated me to retire. I never bought into the idea they owned me body and soul.

Even when I had time off, almost as soon as it started, I was stressed about it coming to an end.

I worked for a good company that paid me well, so I stayed fully committed and used to tell myself, “Don’t retire until you retire.” But the more hours I put in, the more I began to think about my exit strategy. I’m glad I hung in there, but I’m also glad I got out in time to enjoy retired life.

Now I’m entering my third year of retirement. The 365-day weekend. My third Thanksgiving without the dread of wondering when the call or email would come that some sort of crisis demanded my immediate attention. The biggest event today happened when I was toasting pecans and did a taste test. A few were rancid, so I had to throw out the whole package and send Dale to the store for more.

I know there are those who need more excitement or greater challenges, but I’m kind of done pushing that rock up the hill. Ambition served me well, but I don’t feel that need to prove myself anymore. Maybe it will come back, but for now I’m happy reading, writing, playing golf, walking, swimming, cooking – the usual suspects.

It got cold and windy and rainy here, so I’m going through my annual period of denial and staying inside with a couple of good books. I forgot I now have a gym membership, because I mainly just use it for the pool, but I could easily drive over there and hop on the treadmill. I might do that if this weather keeps up.

As for reading, I discovered a new writer – Kristen Lepionka. Her character is Roxane Weary, a private detective in Columbus, Ohio. There are three books, and I’ve now read them all. The characters are great, the stories interesting and I love her humor. Roxane is also bisexual and has an on-and-off girlfriend, as well as an on-and-off boyfriend. You know, all things prurient …

I’m about half-way through the new Janis Joplin biography by Holly George-Warren. It’s actually quite sad. Janis tried so hard to be conventional and fit in to her family’s expectations, but she just couldn’t make a go of it. I’m glad she went with who she was and shared her rare talent with us, but I wish she had been able to leave the drugs alone.

The Downton Abbey movie is available to stream for $19.99 on Amazon. I’m trying to justify it by suggesting it would cost more than if Dale and I went to the theater to see it and got a big bucket of popcorn. The thing is, he doesn’t really want to watch it, so my justification is weak.

That means I’m just going to do it anyway. My popcorn is pretty good, too. Olive oil, I swear, there’s no turning back.

Thanksgiving wine snobs

Dale and I went to one of our favorite wineries yesterday mainly to purchase replacement Barbera but also to sample the tasting menu and see what’s new. All of it was delicious and on sale if you bought at least half a case, but we stuck with our plan and purchased just two bottles of Barbera, a full-bodied red wine that is a signature wine of the Sierra foothills.

While we love quality wine, we don’t think of ourselves as wine snobs and don’t really know much more or want to know much more than, yum, I like that. It was just our luck to be standing at the wine bar next to a group of sophisticates discussing the merits of various wines.

I detect a hint of hot tar from a freshly paved road.

Oh, is that lemon meringue pie I taste on the back of the tongue?

Hmmm, laced with wood and deep notes of tobacco …

Dale and I were dying. I mean, we know detecting all these flavors in wine is a real thing, but it was starting to sound ridiculous. I whispered to Dale, “Is that ripe roadkill I’m tasting?” He said, “No, perhaps a hint of just-mowed sod with a backdrop of goose poop.”

All that said, we love being close to the wineries and find most of the wines in El Dorado and Amador counties to be just as good and less expensive than anything you might find in Napa or Sonoma. The tasting rooms are usually in beautiful settings, and the experience is completely unpretentious if you don’t count local wine snobs. It’s a lovely outing for us, and we never buy wine from the grocery store anymore. Maybe we are snobs.

Two popular wines that are typically not grown in the foothills are Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. However, some of the wineries partner with growers in other areas and bottle it locally.

To accompany our Thanksgiving dinner, we’re having a bottle of Pinot Noir from E16, a winery in Somerset, which is about a 30-minute drive from our house. The grapes are actually grown in the Russian River Valley. E16 wines are spendier than some, so we save them for special meals but not necessarily special occasions. It just depends on what we’re cooking and how we feel.

We don’t follow rules about what to drink with what. For example, some say you should only drink white wine with fish. We had sautéed Petrale Sole the other night, and we did enjoy that with a nice Sauvignon Blanc ($9.99 from a bottle-your-own event at a local winery). However, we usually have red wine with salmon … and turkey.

Just for fun, I included a picture of a wine purchased 30 years ago, when we lived in Egypt. We’ve been hauling this thing around for a long time. It was pretty awful even then, but you know, you make do with what you have. We called it EBD wine. That stood for Egyptian Bathroom Disease. I’m sure it’s even more awful now, but aside from the wine, we loved Egypt and seeing Gianaclis in the rack brings back fond memories.

That’s the thing about wine. You don’t have to be an expert. I don’t know tar from tobacco, but I know to start with what tastes good and focus on the people, the food, the conversation and the scenery – the whole experience.

Our Pinot Noir will accompany roast turkey, Maine potato stuffing, green beans almondine, mashed potatoes and gravy, and homemade cranberry sauce. Dessert is pumpkin cheesecake.

What’s on your menu?

The best salad dressing you’ve never tasted

I gained a bunch of weight in high school but lost the extra pounds in my early 20s. In between, I struggled with what to eat and demonized foods I now view as perfectly fine to enjoy in moderation. Salad dressing was verboten for several years. Instead, I’d add a squirt of lemon or rice wine vinegar. Serviceable but not outrageously delicious.

While I understand some people restrict fats for various reasons, I focus on eating wholesome homemade foods, fat be damned. But because I don’t load up on processed foods or junk (and exercise a lot), I don’t have a weight or cholesterol problem, and I bear no guilt for treating myself to a salad with yummy dressing.

Cooking from scratch is a retirement hobby that pays huge dividends.

My favorite indulgence as a teenager (when not dieting) was a chef’s salad with thousand island dressing. I still love it. There’s just something so satisfying about creamy but slightly tart thousand island on crisp greens, ham, turkey, cheese and hard-cooked eggs. As for the dressing, it seems not a lot of places serve it anymore. Or if they do, it’s not house made.

Another dressing that’s hard to find is Roquefort. Marie’s, the premium dressing sold in a jar in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, used to have Roquefort. When they discontinued it, I actually wrote them a letter. The response was something along the lines of it not being cost-effective. Their blue cheese is still good, and we use it sparingly.

We often go with olive oil and balsamic vinegar or just plain old red wine vinegar or even Italian mixed up from the Good Seasons packet, but our favorite is an oldie we found in a Los Angeles Times cookbook, circa 1981. They call it French dressing, although it bears no resemblance to any French dressing I’ve ever tasted. We call it The Pink Stuff.

The Pink Stuff is easy to make. The taste is peppery with a pungent mustard backdrop and a hint of sweetness from the red wine. It’s fantastic over any kind of greens, including spinach. Mostly I just drizzle it on because it’s convenient and doesn’t use an extra dish, but as is the case with most salad dressings, less is more.

My spinach salad in the picture was a wee bit overdressed but still fantastic. Ideally, you toss a small amount of dressing with your greens in a big bowl to lightly but evenly distribute the tasty goodness.

This recipe calls for simple ingredients we keep on hand anyway. We store peanut oil in the refrigerator because we don’t use it that much, and it can go rancid. The oil solidifies in the fridge, so you need to take it out ahead of time or run hot water over the bottle to re-liquify. The bottle we buy is too tall for the microwave.

Pro Tip. Go ahead. Save the big bowl and pour The Pink Stuff directly on your salad. Just not too much.

The Pink Stuff (French Dressing)

Punched with flavor and unlike anything resembling what you might think of as French dressing, this recipe was originally published by the Los Angeles Times California Cookbook (1981). It was said to be the house dressing at Le St. Germain, a fine French restaurant in Hollywood I believe no longer exists.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp white pepper
  • 1 tbsp Dijon-style mustard
  • 1 tsp hot dry mustard
  • 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 3 tbsp red wine
  • 1/4 cup peanut oil

Instructions
 

  • Combine salt, black pepper, white pepper and mustards and mix well with a whisk. Add vinegar and wine, and beat until smooth. Slowly add oil and beat with a whisk until slightly thickened.

Growing cannabis (day 10)

Today is day 10 of growing my cannabis plant, which is still in the “jiffy pellet” that came with the kit. It’s almost time to transfer the seedling to the big pot. However, nothing is crisp and clear in the world of gardening … probably another reason I avoided it for so long.

I tend to be literal. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned Humpty Dumpty was an egg. Everyone laughs, but they never said he was an egg. OK? I used to be that way about cooking, too. If the recipe said 450 degrees for 20 minutes, it was 450 degrees for 20 minutes, and it didn’t matter if there were flames shooting out of the oven. Just following the recipe.

With practice and skill, I lightened up and became more creative and flexible in the kitchen. I’m hoping some of that will rub off on my gardening activities. I mean, this is my first attempt to grow anything other than a yeast infection. Learning as I go. And that’s the issue. Other than what the instructions tell me, I don’t know what to expect.

Here’s what I know so far. The smooth more rounded leaves at the bottom are called cotyledons. I think they eventually fall off. The second set of leaves are the big ones, and the third set of leaves are the smaller ones in the middle. While they look healthy to my untrained eye, the instructions say to transplant after about 10 days, or when the third set of leaves are the same length as the second set.

So, there’s my dilemma. The leaves are nowhere close in size. Just to make it more complicated, the instructions say it’s better to transplant sooner rather than later. I suppose I will have to use my judgment, which is always suspect.

The type of cannabis I’m growing is called Ruderalis. It’s an auto-flowering strain that is said to be ideal for growing at home or indoors. It does not need 12-hour cycles of light and dark, as Indica and Sativa require. The plant needs about four hours of sunlight a day.

My seedling is perched by a south-facing window, and although I think it’s getting plenty of light, I’m not really sure. If in doubt, the guidelines suggest supplemental LED lighting. I’m kind of holding out on that front, as the room truly is flooded with warm sunlight most of the day.

I’m wondering if my plant is a little slow to grow because we keep our house rather cool … although the instructions say it should grow fine with a temperature between 69 and 80 degrees. We’re probably at the bottom end of that.

I have to make a decision, and I’ve pretty much decided I’m not waiting too long for the second set of leaves to catch up to the third. I’ll probably give it two more days and then do the transplant. I have this feeling it will work, but it’s going to take a little longer than normal because of the air temperature. Just a WAG on my part.

If the plant fails, I have more seeds and can try again. If needed, I will probably spring for the supplemental LED light. Or maybe it’s just something I can only grow in the warmer months. We’ll see!

An uneventful week … perfect

It was an uneventful week of retirement, and that is exactly how I like it.

Dale seems to be recovered from a brutal case of Achilles bursitis. He has been sidelined for awhile, and now it looks like we can plan some outdoor activities together. The weather here in northern California is gorgeous. This is what we pay for.

I’ve recovered from a freak accident involving the upper back weight machine, whereupon you sit on a bicycle-like seat facing the weights and squeeze your shoulder blades as you pull the weights toward you. If you should so happen to be taking boatloads of Advil for another injury and exert too much energy, it might result it some pretty spectacular bruising in the area of the body getting all friendly with the bicycle seat.

Now I know why Lance Armstrong didn’t know he had testicular cancer.

Our solar power system on our house is finally up and running. This is the last year of the 30 percent rebate on our federal taxes. We’ll use the rebate and savings on our utility bill to fund a new heating and cooling unit next year. Ours is 20 years old.

The solar contractor was excellent, but PG&E dragged their feet. They presumably had fires and electrical outages to worry about … one of the downsides of living in northern California.

PG&E emailed a welcome packet, which I suppose we’ll have to read. I’m not much for details when it comes to science. If I should ask Dale a simple question, I get a 20-minute response and references to books and documentaries. I would have been fine with something along the lines of, “Sun make magic with roof panels.”

When I think about our daily activities, I expect someone to scold us for being privileged. We’re not extravagant, mostly focusing on simple pleasures, but I do recognize not living from paycheck to paycheck is a luxury. Still, I imagine an announcer from an old scare-tactic documentary such as Reefer Madness.

“They don’t work! They eat cheese! They wear jammies until noon! They run out of mayonnaise! They’re living the retirement lifestyle!”

So, yes, we ran out of mayonnaise. Dale was making BLTs and scraping the bottom of the jar. He went to the pantry for more, and there wasn’t any. I followed up with another search. Surely, there’s a backup jar hiding somewhere between crushed tomatoes and peanut butter.

Running out of mayo is unheard of in our house. It would be like running out of cheddar cheese. Just doesn’t happen. Dale takes great pride in maintaining a robust pantry. Anything gets low, and you know there’s another one in backup.

I have a responsibility to add items to the list, so it’s not his fault. Surely, somewhere between tuna melts and tuna melts, I should have seen this coming.  

Part of the problem is we don’t keep a master list. Dale hates lists. Especially if it says to-do and has his name on it. I was in search of a compromise and after a period of reflection that included counting my blessings for having such problems, an idea bubbled to the surface.

Here’s the deal. Dale hates having a personal list, but he’s not opposed to lists in general. What’s not to like about a house list, as in not his and not mine? We have a small collection of refrigerator magnets, and I used them to affix the list to the fridge, a neutral setting. Now there’s a consolidated location for documenting items that are getting low.

I slowly walked Dale over to the list, like introducing a cat to another cat for the first time. He might have sniffed and scratched a little, but he likes it! And he bought replacement mayo.

Today is a beer run. No list required.

OK, boomer, so you’re a veteran

I was a journalist in the U.S. Army from 1974-1977. My husband is retired from the Army. We both like to joke we won the Cold War. In any event, we did our part, and on this Veterans Day, I would like to thank all those who served. Obviously, that would exclude President Bone Spurs.

Since I retired, I’ve noticed weekends and holidays are a blur. An overheard conversation at our house:

Is it Friday?

No, I think it’s Saturday.

Um, no, it’s Friday.

Yeah, you might be right.

Whatever.

I reminded Dale it was Veterans Day weekend and Monday was a holiday, basically because we like to avoid crowds. He said he was pretty sure Veterans Day was one of the holidays that isn’t adjusted to make for a three-day weekend.

Who knows? I went upstairs and Googled it. Ha! We were both right. The holiday doesn’t move, but this year it happens to be on a Monday. So, here we are. We have no special plans because when other people go out … we stay home.

I’m in the middle of a pretty good Jack Reacher novel. The gym is probably a safe bet. I’d like to get in a swim and might tidy up the garage. Based on the number of boxes out there, we could start our own Amazon delivery service. We’re starting to think about Thanksgiving. I’ve pretty much settled on Pumpkin Cheesecake with Bourbon Sour Cream topping for dessert. It’s an old Gourmet recipe from the vault.

Oh, and in my idleness, I’ve been reflecting on the OK, boomer business. While I definitely don’t think boomers should curl up and go away, I’m not offended by the dismissal, either.

When I was working, I heard boomers speak to millennials and gen Xers with arrogance … comments such as, “I have shoes older than you” or “I’ve been working longer than you’ve been alive.”

Boomers, in my opinion, are an important voice and should continue to express themselves, but sometimes we need to shut the fuck up and let the younger generation have their say, even if they’re saying we suck.

What was that Army expression about getting even? Payback’s a medevac.

A seedling emerges!

I planted my cannabis seed six days ago, and this morning I went in to say hello, you know, encouraging my little one to emerge from the soil, and there it is. My baby seedling!

The instructions now say to keep the pellet damp but not too wet or dry. In about 10 more days, it should be ready for transfer to the big pot. I’ll post another picture when it looks more like a plant … probably right before the transfer.

Here’s my first post about growing cannabis at home. Just another fun retirement hobby …

Colonoscopy schedule creep

While I am grateful to the medical community for all the excellent treatment I’ve received over the years, my expectations are high, and I am disappointed when they do things that are not in my best interest. Nothing bad happened, but you could still call this a cautionary tale about manipulation and will.

I am BRCA-positive. The three biggest risks for me are ovarian cancer, breast cancer and colon cancer. I’ve already had ovarian and breast, so, you know, only one left.

Because of my BRCA status, I am on the five-year plan for colonoscopies. I’m due in 2020. I’ve never had an abnormal result, but they like to keep close tabs. At my annual physical, my primary care physician said she’d start the referral process for the colonoscopy. Faster than you can say Jack Robinson, I get a call from the gastro clinic wanting me to come in for a pre-screen.

I said, “I don’t want to do it until 2020.” I did not say, “Because my last colonoscopy was in 2015. I’m on the five-year plan. Do the math.”

She said this is just a pre-screening with the nurse practitioner. Fine. I went this week, and first off, I did not like the nurse. She had sort of a fake kindly voice but only wanted one-word answers to her questions, and I got the distinct feeling she would lock me in an insane asylum if she could. Not that she would be the first.

The pre-screen all went well, and then she said, “OK, let’s get you scheduled!” It was like the Party City ads on TV:

Oh, it’s on.

She escorts me to a room, where a clerk is ready to schedule my event. I said, “I don’t want to do it until 2020.” She said, “We don’t book that far out in advance.”

I said (in my outside voice) this is bullshit.

“I told the person who called me to schedule this appointment I wasn’t due for my five-year check-up until 2020.” She said, and I quote, “Oh.”

Then she explains I’ll simply need to call back as we get closer to the date. What? December? January? There was no specific guidance. Then for the kicker, she added, “We already sent your prep kit to the pharmacy, but don’t worry, it has a long shelf life.”

I was not amused. Because I am a worry wart, I’m thinking, what is a long shelf life? What if I drink all that crap and have to do it again because it wasn’t fresh? By the time I got home, I was hungry and pissed. I made myself a monster tuna melt with good Swiss cheese and Dale’s homemade bread, and it was comforting and delicious.

As I sat there eating what Dale called my Hearty He-Girl Lunch, I recounted the story to him. I explained my dilemma. Every five years is enough. Even though it’s just a couple of month’s difference, doing it in 2019 basically cheats me out of a year. Because next time, they will say, oh, you had it done in 2019. Your next one is in 2024, not 2025, as previously scheduled.

Of course, I could get over my snit and do it this year. I’ve already met the deductible. Nothing prevents me from speaking up and correcting this when they push for the next one in 2024. But I hate getting manipulated because they run a colonoscopy mill.

As I write this, I’m half-way talking myself into doing it after Thanksgiving but before Christmas. In the end, getting the colonoscopy done a few months earlier is no big deal if I dismiss the manipulation charges.

All vigilance is in the interest of my continued good health, right? When I remind myself I am very lucky to have survived both ovarian and breast cancer, I’m exceedingly grateful and not nearly as pissed about the colonoscopy schedule creep.

I am reminded of the quote from Mother Blues by the musician Ray Wylie Hubbard.

“And the days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, well, I have really good days.”

Cannabis as a house plant

When I retired and started using cannabis to treat my post-mastectomy pain, medical cannabis was legal in California but recreational was not. I’m not positive how it worked, but I think farmers sold their production directly to collectives, who then sold it to consumers. The prices were great!

Then came recreational. Now everything is tightly regulated, there are more middlemen, everything is in fancy packaging and the prices are higher. We’re not getting deals like we used to. I’m not complaining, because I believe regulation is the path toward full legalization, so bring it on. But I miss cheap weed.

I have a friend whose husband grows cannabis in his backyard, and I don’t think they even partake. He just likes to grow stuff. They have been kind enough to give us a couple of mason jars full of very nice weed, but one doesn’t want to be greedy, as in going back and begging for more.

Although I’m not much of a green thumb, I decided to try and grow it. I researched options for growing just one plant. Where I live, you can grow it outdoors, although we don’t get much sun in our backyard. One tomato plant in the ground and a ceramic pot of habanero peppers is about all we can muster. I assumed the only other option would be hydroponic, but it can be complicated and gets expensive fast.

I settled on A Pot for Pot, which is a kit that includes nearly everything you need to grow one plant indoors by a window or under an LED light. I purchased the small 2-gallon kit for $79.95. The plant grows two to four feet and yields up to four ounces of cannabis.

For seeds, A Pot for Pot partners with I Love Growing Marijuana, and you get a 20 percent discount on seeds with your pot kit. The folks at A Pot for Pot say autoflowering seeds are better for growing cannabis as a house plant. Among other things, that means the plants don’t require total darkness to flower. I paid $84 for 10 seeds, leaving some wiggle room for mistakes or more plants in the future!

Everything came in fine form and fashion, and I set it up this weekend. I put the pot by a south-facing window, where I believe it will get enough sun. If not, I’ll have to spring for an LED light. Right now, the seedling is in the little starter kit. If all goes well, it will emerge from the soil in about a week and begin to look like a baby plant after another 10 days. Then I will transfer it to the big pot.

As I said, I’m not much of a gardener. But I thought it was worth a try, and I’m not out a boatload of money. The combined cost of the plant kit and seeds is $88.35. Let’s say I yield four ounces of cannabis. That’s about $22 an ounce. My local dispensary sells buds ranging from $30 for 1/8 ounce to $55 for 1/8 ounce. That’s $240 to $440 an ounce!

We’ll see how it goes, and of course, I’ll keep you posted on my progress. It should take about 11 weeks to grow a fully mature plant. And then I have to harvest, dry, trim and cure.

And people wonder what we do all day in retirement.