Hey Collective!
I fell off the blog posts while harvest was kicking and we crushed it! What a great season, and I want to thank all involved. I've thanked folks on FB and where we gather, but I want to give another shout out to the planting and summer tending crew and of course the harvest crew! We're taking our time to quality check and process through a lot of hard work from this year and ridiculously stoked to get it infused in our H2Ohm wicked soon! But here's a twist! We might need to call our water bevies H2Au ...and here's why!
I’ve been studying our local rocks and minerals here at Meadow House and surrounding... looking for what makes our water taste so great (crisp) and the cannabis grow like it does (ridiculously meaty flowers)! And I've studied Natural Resources since majoring in it at UVM in the early 90's... I learned about water and geology, and wildlife corridors... it was a great program and I definitely enjoyed understanding the recreational spaces within wilderness for a long time... that's a huge part of many Vermonters' internal centeredness- a connection with nature. So while I push back on the injustices of the systems of status quo, let me not forget to thank those older than me that walked the miles before me and gave / left me their insights and wisdom- I am grateful to real teacher's and not defender's of dogmatic institutions. We all have to do the dance of moral consistency and economic reality.. but we think we can reshape that by setting a better model.
And forgive me for having some fun with the young-un's, Ok, Boomers? ;) Actually, to be honest I love the seniors in our Collective the most and y'all know who you are! Mostly our Boomers are young at-heart and trapped in a generational reality. Don't let anyone tell you I don't love me some Boomers! Remember, the closer we get to living the life we want, the more the haters of that success will try to step up and take away those freedoms from us.. but we will continue to share good vibes across the ages!
And for me the Worcester range had a lot of unique peculiarities that I knew I needed to help protect but also create access to the wisdom that this amazing ecosystem has to teach and share... most of you know I have conversations with the water- or claim to- because how does one defend that nugget of modern world insanity?!? But there are stories and legends up here beyond the alcohol bootlegging ones they love to hype up about the rum runners through Smugglers' Notch... and the waters coming off of the Worcester range have long been known to produce native gold...at least for those willing to listen to the water.
Fun fact: the Gold Brook (between downtown Stowe and Waterbury Center) used to be Hull Brook... until the bling bling of one indigenous player (of an Algonquian-speaking origin?) was profiled as "suspicious" when he paid for things via gold placer in downtown Stowe.. which raised eyebrows... you can read more about Native Joe and the good old boys of yore here if interested.
Here's the news though... Ready? I found Native Joe’s stash vein up here a long time ago (and I never pulled from the pockets that he missed, but shhhh...don't tell any one). Why does that matter though? Well in addition to marketing our CBD water, I wanted to have something really worthwhile to use this on to justify harvesting some gold off our homestead. And I wanted to have a specific purpose for our infused beverages- beyond just the pledge to protect the backcountry and leave no trace in what we do and how we produce and share our wares with the world. So that was a personal challenge... and I want to tell our story, brew our elixirs, and share our mining so that enough people take interest in the legend of Native Joe's' Gold (or something far less offensive than Old Indian Joe a name given him by the hustlers that followed him around with spies to find his gold.. but never quite did)... but as a Collective... we can change that racist narrative or add a new chapter to restore some dignity to our community... and possibly redirect the course of history and racist propaganda (at least on this one tiny "legend")... and while having some fun searching out his "lost" treasure in the process... :)
So we can change the name of that “legend” going forward and out of respect- albeit an imperfect revision, I'm sure. And we will bring some resolution to his story through our own storytelling on the Meadow House Chronicles channel. I'll post a prelim drone video from the harvest this summer and much, much cooler stuff as we profile some of our Collective members, the Infusionry crew, and our MHCAU (Meh+achoo) prospecting team (as well as all the technologies we'll be using for growing cannabis and recovering gold organically).
So with that... we’re putting together a dream team to chase the thrill. We'll look to create content for our marketing tie-ins with our H2Ohm (H2Au is nice- but I still prefer the Ohm to the Au) and infused cannabis beverages but finding gold is actually something I really believe (at an 87% confidence level) is out on our land in quality and quantity just waiting for us to find. Others may try to jump on the gold fever and find it or or try to top us at doing what we do... but the honey-pot is super specific and requires permission from the water to be found... for real... there is so much more to this story... and I’m super pumped to get to share more of the legends and an awesome little secret that I’ve been sitting on for over 2.5 decades.
I’m adding some pics and unique ways to look at the geography / geology and watersheds surrounding Meadow House, the Little River, and Gold Brook- where gold was successfully mined out of in the latter half of the 1800’s... but by 1900’s sheep farming for wool was far more lucrative with almost 80% of VT’s’ forests logged and pasture-friendly. That ultimately gave way to the dairy wave, and now we are super deep into cannabis. Pretty fun, right?!?
For context, the Gold Brook is just over on the other side of Blackjacks’ Hill and MH here in the Ravines. As these pics show, the water coming off of the Ravines at one time had a back eddy or shifted course as it hit obstructions in its' way and turned North towards MH and down through our spaces of pond, rice paddies (work in progress), pastures, and timber stands for a bit... before returning West and flowing out to sea level downstream of us... but it took that turn later in the geologic evolution of the Ravines and how the story unfolded up here also resulted in the aquifer beneath our meadow. We posit this back eddy also left plenty of gold placers and nuggets for us to find... and all without even touching Native Joe's' stash. I outlined the 1100’ marks on the topo-map, and it’s kind of cool to see how just a little land mass of elevation can create two parallel but separated brooks (Bryant and Thatcher Brooks) originating on one side and the North side flowing down and out through the Gold brook and Little River just a short hop on the other side of us. That changed the flow and rates of flow over extremely long periods of time. I’ve been exploring this a bit and apparently these perpendicular faults (or massive geologic glacial cuts against the straight downward force of gravity) allow the gold nuggets to drop out much easier as the speed of flow transitions on the bend... so we are kind of at a really great place to find the kind nuggets. :)
And while I was spelunking through the archives of the Interwebs, I found this article about Waterbury, Vermont rare findings while looking to understand mineral compatibility and what factors into higher gold assay (purity) and based on surrounding local minerals and geologic compositions. It would seem a vein of Rudite Quartz had been found in the mid-1800’s in the Southern and Eastern portions of the Worcester Mountain range (Waterbury and Middlesex). Totally leaves us wondering if that vein runs north under or possibly up through the range or if it sits at that lower elevation under the aquifers up here as well? That would be fun to explore. Any geologists or rock nerds (said lovingly) want to come join our prospecting party with the Collective this Summer?!?
Until next time MHC, be well and take care of each other!
-Glenn
P.s. Lots of Gelato, coffee, water, 20mg OG Kush gummy leafs, and always some daily surprises to keep the Recreational Wellness Consults about your well being and happy place. 1Love to all.