In 1978, when John Basler’s parents moved into southern West Virginia, five miles outside the tiny village of Forest Hill, they had idealistic dreams of forming a communal, self-sustaining farm with 13 of their friends.
Their friends never showed up. They got waylaid by work, detained by life in Washington D.C. and the surrounding communities.
But the Baslers stayed. They built a house and began planting fruit and vegetables. By the time John left for Grinnell, they had developed the area into a catnip farm that produced about 500 pounds a year.
For many years, the Baslers sold their catnip wholesale to Cosmic Catnip of Maryland. Now they own their own Mountain Lion Catnip Company, which sells raw catnip as well as catnip mini-pillows, chin scratchers, and other whimsical cat toys.
“We made political dolls during the elections,” Basler said. “The idea is that you order the doll that you didn’t want to win, and we’d put catnip in the neck, so your cat gradually rips its head off.”
Catnip, or nepeta cataria, is a member of the mint family well-loved by feline pets. Mountain Lion catnip, Basler explained, makes cats even more crazy: it can be up to seven times stronger than most catnip mixes.
The variance in strength comes from Baslers’ labor-intensive method of weeding. In mid-July — when the catnip is fully budded, but before it goes to seed — it is cut. The cut ‘nip is then bound into bundles and weeded by hand, removing thorns, stems and additional vegetation. After several months of drying, the catnip is then thrashed, “bashed,” and prepared for sale.
The catnip farm isn’t profitable enough to support the family, so John’s parents have also worked in the D.C. area, his dad as a woodworker and a counselor at a juvenile detention center and his mom at a nursery and as an editor for a consulting firm with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Basler was homeschooled, so he spent a lot of unstructured time around the farm. When he wasn’t reading fantasy books and daydreaming, he helped his parents. By 15, he had discovered a love and aptitude for music, playing the guitar and bass. He also “twinkles around on piano and cello,” in addition to performing in various campus bands and choirs.
Basler’s music will no doubt lead him down a different path than that his parents took. However, for him, music holds the same logical serendipity and sense of retrospective understanding that governed his parents’ development into West Virginian catnip farmers. “There’s a spontaneity and creativity in music,” he said. “It’s like you can create without knowing how you were doing it, and then you look back, and you see how you do it.”
—Sara Millhouse
The character of catnip
• Other names for catnip: catmint, catrup and catwort
• Although catnip is primarily known for the euphoric effect it produces in cats, not all cats are in fact “nipaholics” — about 10 percent do not respond to catnip
• Humans, particularly British ones, have been known to drink catnip tea for its calming effects, which are supposed to be similar to those produced by the natural sedative in Valerian, another perennial herb
• Catnip is described as having a “warm, minty, grassy taste”
Info from: www.catnipcafe.com/catnip.html