I think, like the first year was the hardest year.

And it made me actually want to give up on all of this.

We lost everything.

I remember getting the call from my dad.

I've only ever heard my dad cry a handful of times in my life, and that was one of them.

And I think that he was just heartbroken for Riley and I because he knew how much we put into this.

Should we even try?

Should we just call it quits?

Throw in the towel.

Accept this as a sign.

So my parents have always had a very entrepreneurial spirit.

And if it weren't for that, you know, we wouldn't be here.

And in 2018, the farm bill passed federally, Which legalized, you know, hemp and what you're seeing us do here.

And my dad's always up for a new adventure and basically pitched This idea of, "Hey, I saw some farmland that we could buy."

"I think that we should try this hemp thing out."

And it was not hard to convince Riley and I to take that leap.

Let's say we've been passionate about this plant for a lot longer than Maybe he even might have been.

We never second guessed that we could do something like this.

And I think that that is such a privilege of our raising, Um, that nothing is impossible.

And it doesn't matter where you're from or what you come from.

It's not like our family had a ton of money.

You know, my dad's actually a retired police officer.

So this this pitch coming from him wasn't very "Really, really.

You're interested in that?"

But I never doubted us for a second.

And I knew that even if it didn't work out and it would just be something like "Hey, remember in 2018, when we all decided to farm hemp?"

But now it's become our lives.

And I think when we first started, this isn't something that like this was the basis of it.

This is kind of like where the dream was is like, "Oh my god, we get to be farmers."

and we get to farm a plant that we've loved our entire lives."

We were in college at the time, and this was, mind you, this was the first year that our family farmed period.

It's not like we're from a long generation of farmers.

Honestly, the ridiculous thing that we tried in the beginning Was planting 15,000 plants.

But yeah, 15,000 plants in the first year.

We did say that it was the worst and we mean it.

We were just starting on our farm journey and we didn't know what we were doing.

And we learned so much in that year.

And it kind of brought our vision from this industrial standpoint to the craft scene.

And now we spend a lot of time with every single plant, with our hands, making sure to touch everything throughout the season.

So when we started down the edibles journey, we approached our grandma, which is so funny in retrospect of it all.

She was the best cook that we knew and we said, "Hey grandma, we want to make some gummies."

And she got right on it and she made our gummies For the first three years, actually, that Moonflower was in existence.

We've always tried to be super active on social media And bring a level of transparency to this industry.

Through seed-to-sale.

So through showing us in the ground, following or allowing our customers to follow us all the way through the grow season.

We have very specific policies here.

Our lab is under a very specific protocol.

Everybody wears gear, and we just make sure that everything is in line.

West Virginians help West Virginians and the word of mouth that we were able To achieve through this business when it started in our hometown.

And, you know, just we get people from our state All the time saying we love to support local.

We love bringing up fellow West Virginians trying to make their dreams come true.

And we do live in a very red state.

But you wouldn't imagine the amount of people I think.

I think cannabis brings people together on both sides of the coin.

Even politically.

Maybe we don't see that in legislation, but we see that in our communities.

And whether those decision makers decide to listen to that.

I think it's so interesting that this has brought customers From both sides of the coin, and I love to see it.

I love that it brings people together.

It's kind of like how your aunt comes to your lemonade stand as a kid.

Same idea.

But our family was like, yeah, I'll take some gummies, we'll take a tincture, you know?

But our products, they speak for themselves.

I think that in the beginning, when we were first opening up our store, It was "Oh, somebody's opening up a pot shop right on Main Street."

And I think that our store even was called the Gay store From the senior center over there.

I think it was the rainbow branding, which, you know.

The community was not as receptive in the beginning as what they are now.

People think, you know, like you, They looked down on my dad for like, "How can you, like, regulate and be that person of policing for so many years and now you're okay with it?"

I'd be like "Yeah!"

He has learned.

He has seen the stigma fade away.

He has educated himself and learned so much about cannabis That he's like "Wow!

This isn't all that I thought it was cracked up to be!"

"This is a really, really awesome thing!"

And I think that that has been applied to lots of different people over the years That we've seen come in and out of Moonflower And it's a really, really cool accomplishment.

One other thing I want to point out.

The hemp industry.

I mentioned this last night.

There was an attempt to reverse this, but the final bill does contain a ban.

On unregulated hemp with THC in it.

That industry says that will crush it.

So we have to see what economic effect that has.

But that's something that looks like it's going to go through.

I definitely am kept up at night thinking about yearly legislation.

This can happen at any point.

Decision makers can wave their wands and everything That we've built for the past seven years and that breaks my heart sometimes.

I hate that a lot of times decisions are made with lack of education and lack of effort.

There's no effort to come to people like Macy and I, who are quite literally leading this industry in West Virginia.

We haven't heard from any of our representatives despite reaching out.

And that's really disheartening and it does keep me up at night.

In 2020, we unfortunately had a fire in the warehouse That housed all of our finished products, our packaging materials, Our labels, our computers, everything that we use to You know, store our products and ship out our orders.

Everything except for our extractor and our plants, basically.

And it was devastating.

We just had such a strong support system and a strong support within our community that we had no choice.

We were like, you know what?

We cannot let this get us down.

We've made so much progress.

We've learned so much.

Let's just start cleaning.

And we scrubbed the soot out of this building, cleaned up the mess, and just kept on going.

We made all of our products again.

We repurchased everything, and we didn't let it stop us.

And looking back, I'm so glad that we made that choice.

I can't believe that this is our seventh harvest out here.

Macy.

Yeah, we had a really good harvest this year.

I think that the weather was a little rough.

We had a lot of heat spells and dry spells, and then also periods of time where it was just raining, so it was a little hard on the plants.

But they persevered as always.

And yeah, had a really good harvest this year.

Yeah.

And outdoor grow is definitely always going to present Its trials and errors and all of those things.

But most of our plants made their way through.

And this is a beaut.

She is so purple.

Proud of her.

This is Jelly Donut.

Love the name.

She smells really good.

And it's like no matter how big Moonflower gets, I think it's So important to us that we are never too big for me and you to throw on You know, throw on some clothes in the morning and come out to the farm And harvest together and spend time together and appreciate West Virginia and its beauty.

And, you know, yeah, we could pay people to do this, or we could We could honestly source flower from from other farmers and other places.

But it's important to us that we keep this pillar of Moonflower And the seed to sale portion of things because it means, like I said, It means a lot to us and it means a lot to our customers as well.

What's special about West Virginia is you get this present moment that most states don't really offer.

And when I say that, I'm talking about like the silence and the connection To the land and, you know.

There's no hustle and bustle, you're very in the moment.

You're forced to stop and listen and smell and just Take in everything around you.

Everything feels personal.

And it's a really special experience.

I think a big part of that is also being born and raised here.

You know, it's not just somewhere that we're traveling.

It's somewhere that I know, like I grew up on this land.

I grew up with these people and just surrounded by the natural beauty of this state.

So just makes you appreciate it a little bit more because You know that it's the place that made you who you are.

And fall is also prime time in West Virginia.

And I always love that.

That's when the harvest season falls.

It's just always so peaceful out here in the morning.

And it's because whenever we experienced our fire, we didn't give up.

We said, all right, let's take the bull by the horns and keep going.

So, you know, just just know that you can do hard things.

Know that you can do big things.

And it's whenever you decide to bite the bullet and take those chances That big things happen.

But we decided to stay and we decided to do it.

So if that were to end tomorrow because of legislation and different things, I have no regrets.

And I'm glad that I'm glad we stayed in our home state.