Blue River Terps

     A brief auto-bud-ography:

    

    I been smokin' off n' on 25 years now. I been smokin' legal about 3 years.

    I been goin' to Blue River Terps for 2 years and really don't go nowhere else no more.

    

    The budtenders there are so friendly and knowledgeable, and while this may be the case at other places as well, by now they are friends, neighbors, almost family in a sense, as I see them at the beginning of so many days full of magic and wonder that they help provide, all allowed by our beneficent state of Massachusetts that then swoops in and takes a fifth --- and the Church only took a tithe! and earned scorn and infamy as tyrant over souls --- of that hard-earned bread and adds it back on top of your cost --- which is precisely why I initially avoided dispensaries when they first opened in my area. Cambridge prided itself on awarding our first adult-use license to a Black-owned, community-themed dispensary; but if they're gonna charge $50 pre-tax an 1/8th, I could just go get it direct from some Black kid in the projects for $40...only your guy becomes less reliable when he's on trial for murder. Yeah, when I found out about tax-free Tuesdays (and now Thursdays as well) that just settled it, and I've gone somewhere else like maybe three times since then, in the 700 daze since...

 "Hi, Mark," I greet my neighborhood budtender.

"Hey, Gabe? What can I getcha today?"

"High Mark," I repeat.

High Mark is a quality brand/farm/grower/whatever we want to call these folks, so LMK that I may finetune my recreational reviews, write-ups, stories and anecdotes from the Ganja Garden. Anyway they got good flower that goes for $30-$40, as well as decent pre-rolls. Click the link for more.

Mark is a sativa-leaning budtender and a great guy, but they all are. 

    Wellman Farms is another quality cannabis company. Their "headstash" slices go for $40+, in little white plastic jars: big nugs with pretty colors and shiny glands, but honestly, their budget line Farmer's Friend puts out eighths that go around $30 of the same harvest just that this is machine-trimmed rather than hand-trimmed, with smaller, occasionally 'popcorn' nugs, which honestly I prefer anyway, and ends up lasting longer, comes in little brown paperish bags that don't always keep the bud at its freshest terpene-wise; they were trying out some more plasticy white bags for a while that did seem to keep the flower fresher, but they went back and forth...anyway read the link in this paragraph for more insight into some of the strains they put out, how weed changed my life (again!) and other random philosophical musings. After one of my recent breaks from weed (which I always recommend) I tried out their Pineapple GAK which I have not gotten around to reviewing, as I was busy with the holidays, and working on God is a Mushroom but it is a 1:1, one-to-one that is, THC:CBD, so it had like 11% CBD and only 9% THC, which is like some shit we used to smoke back in highschool. Except it was quality, nice fruity/spicy terpenes although again, the bag doesn't keep it super fresh --- but it was really cool to see what cannabis does without getting fully stoned; anyway I had a really great experience and it brought out a healing connection between me and my 18-year-old son. I should really look into that more often; if I wasn't such a weed fiend, if there were more options...and here's where Blue River and the legal market are a two-edged sword, because they make it even easier to be a daily stoner, but then there are also these options that you could really take advantage of and reinvent your whole relationship with and approach to using cannabis. When I first started buying dispensary weed two years ago it did seem like there were more CBD options available, but presumably the average customer was like me and eschewed these responsible choices for whatever offered the most grams of flower at the highest tested levels of combined THCA and delta-9 (THCVA? where do you draw the line?) percentage per the lowest dollar amount pre-tax...anyway Wellman should bring this one back and include the pricier headstash option and I think, like if I had taken a month or two off of smoking I would grab that and maybe move away from the whole THC addiction thing altogether...

Perpetual is an option if you'd rather stay stoned all the time and not go over-budget.

Bostica was another cheap line they used to sell. Blue River specializes in, or they used to originally that's what the company was about, making their own live rosin, which is modern-day super hash, made without solvents or chemicals, retaining not just three to four times the THC of flower, but at least that much more terpene concentration as well, so you can really experience the flavor and effects of each strain. I finally cashed in my "points" from buying way too much weed over the past two years (or whenever they started giving you points --- I wasn't even aware most of the time I was racking 'em up, until one of the budtenders informed me, that I had 2,500 or whatever and I could get some lighters or whatever but then I realized if I held out I almost had enough) and got a Puffco Proxy, which is like this electronic Sherlock Holmes pipe that lights up and heats up a little dab of rosin to vaporize it. 

    At one point Blue River was set to work with Bostica, their budget flower option at the time, to produce rosin and vape cartridges from their flower. Some pushback on Reddit apparently put the kibosh on those plans...which is a shame because I thought their mimosa would be spectacular. The apples and bananas would probably have been my 2nd choice, however, and Good Chemistry does do a vape cart of that strain, which has pretty good terps. And now they just go with Perpetual for flower, which I think is too bad because although it does get you more consistently stoned than Bostica or Altitude did, something gets lost in translation.  

Modern Flower was the first cheap weed I bought at Blue River or any legal place really, the first time I bought what I considered high quality weed for less than $40 an eighth, in fact it was like $40 for a quarter ounce bag of, I believe the Daybreaker, which reminded me of shit I used to smoke back in highschool in 2001, back when Joe Rogan was safely holding WNYX together with homemade duct-tape on NewsRadio reruns on lazy afternoons I can never forget, moments that were never remembered, those stoned days suspended from school --- read about 'em here.