True community happens when people hear and appreciate each other’s stories. KZSM 104.1 FM and KZSM.org bring you the stories of people you might not meet— from research scientists to singer/songwriters and more. From 11 a.m. to noon on the fourth Thursday of each month, you’ll meet the women of “Bluebonnet Mountains,” a nomadic Texas hemp harvest crew. Host Vanessa Velasquez and her co-host Mai Huynh talk with different members of their 25-woman crew each week. “I try to get a few girls in to tell the story of how life brought them to this kind of work,” Vanessa explains. The women talk about their travels, their work stories, and “past life stories from times they may have been on the road with the Grateful Dead.”
Vanessa was part of our KZSM family back in 2018, hosting a show about local music, artists, and foodies, and never lost her commitment to community radio. When her friend Mai brought her onto the Bluebonnet Mountains crew, she felt inspired by the “unique and refined” team created by crew leader Kristi Roberts. When Roberts raised the possibility of a podcast, “I knew what needed to be done to make those voices heard,” and the “Bluebonnet Mountains” broadcast was born.
Roberts is enthusiastic about the broadcast: “It’s important to share the stories of women working in the hemp industry because this line of work not only proves that women can and will do manual labor and do it well, but it also offers a network of endless possibilities from natural healing all the way to marketing.”
Women in the hemp industry “provide a feminine touch when working with the plant,” Roberts explains. They are “medicine people” who want to help and heal others--yoga teachers, massage therapists, doulas, midwives, death doulas, reiki healers, traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, and others. She feels “proud and honored to have met “so many incredible women-- mothers, daughters, and even grandmothers throughout the years.”
Though the women have different backgrounds, “when we end up sitting down to work together and get to chatting it always becomes apparent how much we actually do have in common” Roberts observes. “And that’s what life is all about I think--searching for similarities not differences.”
Tune in to “Bluebonnet Mountains” to chat with the hemp harvest team and find out what you might have in common.
