There will be no photographs accompanying this report. This, I am told, violates several key tenants of Digital Marketing. Our Digital Marketing Guy will be disappointed to have nothing for the Instagram page. Our retail partners will express dismay that we have not Grown The Following.
Of these things we care little. The first rule of Spicebush Scouting: leave your phones in the shop. The Digital Marketing Guys know little of such things. You may safely ignore them.
Should you be curious, and I assume you are, you should bring, when you go into the woods to check your favorite Spicebush beds and discover a few new ones, the following:
One gallon of water.
One Garmin GPSMAX 64sx.
One Sig Sauer P226, chambered in .40 S&W, for the bears and the mountain lions and the bobcats. You will not need this, but its having will convey confidence.
One roll of toilet paper. You will need this.
Two rolls of freshly made Bulgolgi Kimbap, the best trail food in the world.
One Machete. You will absolutely need this.
One utility knife. I wear a Ka-Bar, which is undoubtedly overkill.
One pair swiss-made Felco 2 pruning shears.
One USGS Topo map, 1:15,000 resolution, waterproof.
A hiking partner (extremely optional).
The support of a good woman, who will nurture your children while you romp through the woods, without whom none of your ambitions are fathomable (extremely mandatory).
With this packout, you too can conquer the Spicebush beds, for one day.
You will drive East until you see the ridge where the glacier ground to a halt 10,000 years ago. This ridge will appear as a very sudden, faint, dark line between the semis and the trees. You will see it, rising 300 feet above the horizon, from your truck, 10 miles away, down on the floor of the glacial till basin. Beyond this ridge lies the object of your obsession.
Spicebush, being America's Native Spice (tm), is a wild plant. Our commercial planation, the first of its kind, planted in neat rows, tilled and mulched and composted and weeded and pruned, will not bear fruit for 3 more years.
Until then, we go into the wild forest. We are lucky. The Glacier failed to conquer the Appalachian plateau.
We will pack out 2,000 lbs of berries this fall, one 50 lb sack at a time. Each berry will be picked, by hand, one at a time. We will camp in the beds, for one week or two weeks or three. We will eat rice and beans and whatever we can take with the .22. We will drink creekwater run through a very excellent portable RO system.
When this is done, we will pack our 40 burlap sacks into the truck and drive them up to The Farm, where they will be washed, sun-cured in our greenhouse, and packed for your enjoyment.
We have 9,000 acres to cover. We are going where The Glacier could not. We do not have time for The Phones.