By the end of spring semester 2016, the fight against the amaranth was almost finished. Grads Sean, Stephen, and Jillian had hoed and wheel hoed and hand weeded countless fields, and this pernicious weed had fled before the relentless onslaught. This weekly war had left the fields covered in gruesome carnage: purple sprouts uprooted and left to burn under a hot sun; wide-leafed invaders cast aside to mulch the very earth from whence they came; old-growth forests of six feet tall amaranth devastated, never to recover their former glory. The surviving amaranth could not stand his threat to their way of life. They summoned their powers of etheric revenge, they potentized all available auric fields, and they drew upon their powers of biological transmutation to perpetrate a sly and vicious comeback. 

The wisest amaranth plants on the whole property gathered on strawberry hill among the brassicae to discuss the future of their race. Emboldened by the present danger, they chose the nine strongest and craftiest among themselves to be transformed into human beings of at least 18 years of age with valid identification enabling them to work in the US. Thus disguised, these nine amaranthi applied for the Green String Summer 2016 internship. They had all the evil arts of weedy applicants at their disposal as they tended to resumes and fabricated references. As Intern Supervisor Suzie sat down to decide who would make it into that season's field crew, every amaranthus plant on the farm exerted its persuasive powers from near and far. Looking over applications, Suzie suddenly felt dizzy. Names began buzzing in her ears. A great humming arose as all the amaranth began whispering names in unison: "Cynthia, Dylan, Adirchai...." Suzie felt faint. She quickly sent out acceptances. 

That season's crop of interns seemed like any other... until field work got under way. A sequence of curious events marred each day of hoeing. The interns stumbled down the field, taking longer with each successive row. Out of nowhere, a blade would slip, neatly decapitating a squash plant. Whenever the grads turned their backs, entire rows of dill would be eliminated while a solitary amaranth would be carefully protected, in a crime scene that was clearly intended to appear as a case of mistaken identity. But as the summer wore on and mistakes piled up, Suzie felt a tingle of unease. Could a human being make these kinds of mistakes, or was a more sinister loyalty at play? There was only one way to find out, she decided: consult with medicine man, plant doctor, and professional amaranth-buster Bob Cannard. Bob showed up at the sabotage scene armed with a copy of the Sonoma county soil survey index and his characteristic swagger. "Well," he barked. "What seems to be the problem here?" Bob was quickly informed of the farms plight. He walked off to see the fields overrun with amaranth. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, he lined all the interns up against a garage door and began scrutinizing their auras to discern their allegiance: were they agents of weed suppression, agents of crop destruction, or agents of wood digestion? Contamination was widespread. Nevertheless, Bob found that three out of the nine were loyal and truly human, and could be retained without harm. The rest would be exiled to the trackless wastes outside of civilized society, doomed to direct sow for eternity. 

 In the end, Green String would recover from this summer setback to bravely go where no farm had gone before. On July 22, 2016 at 6:30 am, Captain Nowicki guided his signature red vehicle to a safe landing on the surface of the Moon, near the asparagus field. Under directions from General Cannard at ground control, Nowicki and his crew began transplanting Roma tomatoes and other varieties hardy enough, Cannard felt, to survive the lack of anything resembling soil on the barren, lifeless, terrain. Several interns began collecting rock samples to be brought back to earth and analyzed at the farm store for possible calcium deficiency. Others began laying drip lines. All was once again well at Green String Farm. 

Dylan T. - Intern, Summer 2016