Mare christened the six plants she grew every year, and in the fall of 2010, a tall sativa named Willow stood toward the back. Willow towered over the other plants. Her long, stacked flower clusters, or colas, were as long as Mare’s forearm and scraped against the ceiling. Next to Willow stood Red Haired Beauty, Petey, and Big Bertha, the name Mare bestowed every year on her largest, roundest plant. Outside the greenhouse, next to an old solar panel, Mare grew her other two plants. After endless months of watering, staking, and attention, it was finally harvest time, and perhaps the final one before marijuana was fully legal. Dressed in white overalls and armed with a pair of clippers, Mare began snipping off the top colas and stacking them gently in the Indian rice basket at her feet. The idea was that by clipping off the top buds, whose hairs had already started to turn brown and were ready for harvest, the smaller flower clusters underneath would be exposed to more light and would reach maturity faster.
