Humboldt’s Own, Amy Stewart, gardener extraordinaire and delightful writer, got a sweet little packet in the mail and shared the story in the New York Times. ( God, I love Humboldt. )

Leaves of Grass: An Illegal Story

THE day after voters in California rejected an initiative to legalize marijuana, a package arrived at the bookstore I own with my husband: eight ounces of premium bud. This was not a gift from a grateful customer, nor was it a new product we’d brought in for the holiday season. The package came from a grower here in Humboldt County who had decided it would be amusing to use our bookstore as the return address.

And it might have gone directly to a buyer in Austin, Tex., except that the grower had used a little too much packaging, pushing it over the Postal Service’s weight limit. Stamped packages weighing more than 13 ounces have to be handed over in person at the post office, not dropped anonymously in a mailbox. And so the padded envelope and its aromatic contents were returned to sender — in this case, our antiquarian bookstore, which is better known for shipping signed first editions and vintage bird lithographs than Humboldt County’s most famous agricultural product.

At first we couldn’t believe our luck. Rare book dealers are in the business of buying low and selling high, but never had we had the opportunity to take that phrase quite so literally. Anyone else might have been inclined to keep the package for personal use, but we’re shopkeepers facing a busy holiday season. We can’t afford to let the next few weeks drift away in a cloud of smoke. (Finish reading here.)

Hat tip to the North Coast Journal