STRAIN REVIEW: Silver Hawk Flower from Yerba Buena
Ep. 2: Silver Hawk / Yerba Buena / Farma
Harvested: 6/26/19
Purchased: 8/23/19
Consumed: 8/27/19
Greetings, all! Welcome back to wherever you happen to be. I for one am glad it’s worked out as it has.
Seasons are changing fast, eh? I’ve been out gathering every last available shred of Pacific Northwest Summertime Adventure before the big rains hit and as such figured I’d take this week’s installment to share my experiences getting after a racy, uplifting cultivar while it was still fashionably seasonal to do so.
This week’s featured cultivator is not only perhaps the most consistently award-winning Oregonian Cannabis grow I’m aware of, they’re also ludicrously nice people. I’ve never been able to say for certain, and this delves into mysticism I can’t tangibly explain, but all the same I can’t avoid the conclusion: uniformly the best Cannabis I’ve smoked throughout the years is tended by folks with warm hearts and genuine smiles.
This is none the more evident than with the fine Phamily at Yerba Buena, and the Good Herbs they curate.
Hailing from the rolling farmland of Hillsboro on the outskirts of Portland, Yerba is a Clean Green Certified / Certified Kind indoor facility that consistently produces some of the most flavorful and luscious Cannabis you’ll find anywhere on the planet.
The broad strokes: All dirt with dry amendments and Biobizz liquid nutrients as supplemental feeds. They also brew their own compost teas.
The nitty-gritty: I’ve heard, repeatedly, that their grow is some otherworldly sci-fi parthenon of clean gardening practices and delights of gadgetry far surpassing that of we mortals here on Earth. I’ve encountered seasoned folks well in the know coming back from their facility in a glassy-eyed trance with few words and many confuddled gesticulations. If I’m ever lucky enough to confirm this in person: gosh, I don’t even wanna get my hopes up that high. We shall see, eh? One fine day perhaps…
On my most recent trip to Farma I told myself over and over that I was getting ONE NICE THING and that was all. Of course, at Farma, this is a markedly preposterous assumption to make and at some primal level I knew goddamn well in the back of my fool head it wouldn’t work out that way. I saw Yerba’s name next to a flower after I had decided on another cultivar and took a second look and hastily deduced I could reasonably afford to live off instant mashed potatoes for a few days if it meant making a little extra room in the headstash budget. I can still taste the fake potatoes. It’s still the best decision I made all week. Their shit is really, really that good. And Farma is really, REALLY that dangerous.
Reconstituted budget tubers aside, this cultivar in particular goes by the name Silver Hawk. She’s the offspring of White Fire Alien OG x Super Silver Haze, as bred by Kre8 Genetics. As soon as my nose hit the jar I had a reeeeeal good feeling about what was gonna go down. It didn’t disappoint.
Cultivator: Yerba Buena • Strain: Silver Hawk • Day:35
I was lucky enough to chat with cultivation manager Derek recently and gain some insight; I’m pretty friggin baked right now but if you’re especially lucky I may be able to translate some bits of this insight to you. It’s the terroir that makes the grape, eh? Here we are, and so it shall be. Let’s see how this goes…
Cultivator: Yerba Buena • Strain: Silver Hawk • Day:54
“She is definitely a beast,” he says. “She typically produces 4-6 ounces of dried flower per plant depending on the size that we flip her to flower. She stacks giant colas and has the best test results when harvested at day 70. She is very easy to cultivate and is resistant to mildew and insects. Isn’t picky at all.” I gotta say it: from a simple visual inspection that definitely checks out. There’s precious few cultivars I run across that scream this particular shade of “Health” out of the jar.
Derek finds that snowboarding, hiking and playing music are all made more enjoyable with a Silver Hawk preroll. Although I had no snowboard handy: over the course of a couple sessions I can attest that playing music, riding a bicycle, being a pretend donkey ridden by hyperactive children, walking a dog, talking to a dog, laughing with a dog and pretty sure they’re laughing with you, shopping for vegetables and hiking near the Canadian border in a Santa Claus onesie and then stripping down to your underwear and urinating off a cliff while you sing a bawdy and largely inaccurate lampoon of the otherwise venerable Canadian national anthem towards their verdant and upstanding homeland: all these activities were greatly enhanced. For me, anyway. Results may vary of course.
SPECS
Structure
This was a chunky, chunky jar. Even the two-flower gram that I got, being two smaller curved tertiary colas, was super fat, stem to flower wise. I absolutely believe Derek’s claim of 4-6 ounces per plant. This sucker is beast mode all the live long pound.
Cure
As it should be: dry to the touch, some springiness, stem-snappy goodness throughout. A bit sticky for the grind but that’s less of a problem and more of a spoiled whine on my part; I’d well take this over the drier alternative any day. No complaints here.
Nose
I’m immediately reminded of Golden Pineapple, but brighter and more sparkly. Some Smarties candy, a touch of Trainwreck Lemon Pledge / fresh pine boughs. Broken open there’s a bit more of a bright citric cleaning product, lemon zest and a touch of gasoline, extremely bright and clean and well defined all around.
Palate
What I take away is a super bright, “All Treble” kind of vibe. Soap, fresh pine bark chips, very very dry. Very little floral edge at all. There’s something almost metallic to it. Maybe a little coriander as the bowl develops, but it’s a dry palate absolutely until the end.
Effects
Definitely on the more uplifting and energizing end of the spectrum. I did get pretty head spinny / disoriented, which when you’re as top heavy and generally distracted as I am isn’t too far out of the ordinary I suppose. Definitely a head-rushy, cerebrally intense, warm forehead example of activity weed.
My ankle’s kind of fucked right now from this really dumb shit I pulled back in June that involved a wolverine and a helicopter; as such my left big toe now floats about a third of an inch higher than it should and I’ve been Ministry of Silly Walking around the neighborhood lately relearning how to walk and trying to figure out how to be old and essentially crippled. I guess I can reasonably say this buzz extremely succinctly tied that ridiculous room together. It was a mise en place of awkward and I’m glad I live on an unlit street with few neighbors. As the small towns surrounding the base of Mt. Hood are legendary both for their diversity and fecund abundance of wild mushrooms I’m sure any locals who did in fact spy a glimpse of my magnificently off-kilter canter have indeed seen this sort of thing before and I do hope they’ve taken it in stride. Fuck I’m discombobulated. I don’t know why I’ve been writing all this in the past tense, like it’s some Augustan Classicism I’m dispensing to add some excess gravitas to your view of the storyline. Like me walking down the street is some grand Arthurian adventure fraught with challenge and risk and social disgrace or glory eternal. What a world, eh? Sheesh…better just go jam some tunes about it.
…Which, it turns out, was a super decent notion. Although a bit floaty I’m concerted and centered, finally ripping through those scales I meant to get to earlier in the week. Was able to find a stone cold groove after about 20 minutes or so, solid enough indeed for an IG post.
Life is fleeting! Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. I’m not feeling particularly didactic or quotable but entirely ready to cease writing and squeeze some more life out of this momentously occasional Tuesday. Bye for now, kids…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DICK FITTS – GUEST CONTRIBUTOR – BEARD BROS. MEDIA
Jesus, this fucker is still talking? I guess there’s still a bunch of those molly-spun 45-year-old Phish Phart idiot crusties out there that are just too spun at this point to ever shut their obnoxious “heady” mouths. Friggin dinosaurs like this should stick to terrible dancing at dad-rock cover bands in the back of sports bars rather than tell us all how to live our lives. I bet he always goes on and fucking every time he sees his budtender about why don’t they carry Skunk #1 and Neville’s Haze and how much better everything was from Sensi Seeds in 1995 than anything that’s around today. What a goddamn prick…I bet if you slush his PATREON with some “Just fucking stop it already” money he really just might.Might as well try, eh? (Seriously tho: Big Thx if you can)
Keep updated on all the latest news and updates in the Cannabis industry here at Beard Bros Pharms by signing for our Friday Sesh Newsletter here. Always Dank and Never Spam!
