Today, I offer you a show that I
am really excited about and have been wanting
to do for years. For the last ten
years of Shaping Fire, I have chosen our
episode topics first,
and then I go and research the best
industry expert I can find who is also
well spoken and accessible, and I book them.
Easy peasy.
I don't book the people first.
The evergreen and useful topics drive the episodes.
We've never been very cannabis personality based. We
don't do product or company profiles as the
show either. That's what the commercial segments are
for. Shaping fire episodes focus on soil health,
human health, and good vibes. We don't concern
ourselves with scaling,
machine trimmer reviews, and celebrity worship.
However,
my heart belongs to the Emerald Triangle.
My heart belongs to the family farms that
grow food crops and families alongside their cannabis.
My admiration
belongs to the homesteaders
who study regenerative growing because it keeps their
home place free of chemical fertilizers and their
runoff safe for the local salmon streams.
I care about these folks who are running
clandestine
grows and shipping boxes to the Midwest
so I could smoke their flower growing up.
I am enthusiastic
about well meaning outlaws playing hide and seek
with the Federalis.
I am totally engaged by their stories of
helicopters
and summers at the river and $8,000
pounds of O. G. Kush.
I love Humboldt County, Trinity County and Mendocino
County. I love the friends that I know
there and the ones I haven't met yet.
I love the Black Sands, the crazy hill
life and breakfast at the Eel River Cafe.
It's where I go for vacations and yet
it always feels like returning home.
Today's episode is a love letter to regenerative
family farms.
Northern California is the seat of our country's
national cannabis heritage, and it is not talked
about enough.
Since Prop 64 was passed and those lying
liars killed the one acre cap in the
middle of the night, the family farms have
fallen one by one. The business environment has
been intentionally made unwinnable by the political meat
grinder. It is shameful of the California legislature
and the DCC.
So let's focus a spell on the beauty
of these farm families, their stories, and their
amazing flowers.
After holding off on this series for ten
years, I'm finally doing it for myself
because these farms are the part of cannabis
that I care about, and I hope in
a small part to help preserve the family
farms that remain.
If you wanna learn about cannabis health, cultivation,
and technique efficiently and with good cheer, I
encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter.
We'll send you new podcast episodes as they
come out delivered right to your inbox along
with commentary on a couple of the most
important news items from the week and videos
too.
Don't rely on social media to let you
know when a new episode is published. Sign
up for the updates to make sure you
don't miss an episode.
If you like what we do and you
wanna put something in the tip jar, you
can Venmo at Shango Los. Thanks especially to
Topher and Baby Chan who both sent a
little something for the team last month.
As the cannabis market continues to compress and
crumble over much of The United States, there
are fewer and fewer regenerative cannabis companies that
have the budget for marketing. If you know
of a cannabis company not run by cops,
rats, or chemical fertilizers who should be an
advertiser on shaping fire, please let them know
and let me know too. It is by
working together that regenerative cultivation expands, and we
now offer a smaller entry package of commercials
so we're able to include folks with smaller
budgets. Thanks.
You are listening to shaping fire, and I
am your host, Shango Los.
We are in our tenth year of Shaping
Fire, and this is episode 127.
My guest today is Nick Erickson of Full
Moon Farms.
Nick was born of Northern California
soil and sunshine.
He grew up making new paths so the
feds couldn't follow his trail to his grow
spots. He earned his degree in construction only
to apply those skills to building his farm
and the farms of those around him. He
now preserves Northern California's cannabis heritage with his
family and friends at their farm in Humboldt
County.
During the first set, we get to hear
Gold Rush and Green Rush stories. In the
second set, we talk about cultivation war stories
when the penalties were huge and so were
the pound prices.
Finally, we finished the episode in set three
with a discussion of regenerative growing at altitude,
the importance of microclimates,
cannabis variety choices, terpene research, and the flowers
that folks love from Full Moon Farms. All
today on Shaping Fire episode one twenty seven.
Welcome to Shaping Fire, Nick.
Hey. Thank you for having me. It's so
nice to have you here. I've been wanting
to do this for quite some time. You
know, I'm I'm hearing all these birds in
the background. Are you outside?
Yeah. I am. I mean, well, we're we're
we live about, six miles off the pavement,
so we're pretty deep off grid here. But,
yeah, I'm sitting on my my front porch
in shorts and sandals and enjoying the sun
and,
kinda overlooking a, a pond that we have
in front of the place, and and the
birds are extremely active today because it's getting
warm. We just had a had a big
snowstorm last week, and it now it looks
like spring. We have daffodils blooming already, and
it's, just a gorgeous day. So I wanted
to I wanted to do this one outside.
Excellent. Well, the the the the the birds
are really nice in the background, and it's
crazy. The microclimates up in the hills around
Humboldt County, man. Like, you're like, you know,
two weeks ago, you get a couple of
feet of snow, and now you're in your
shorts, and and both are happening in February.
And yes. And we we live in a
pretty extreme,
zone back here. We're kind of on a
northeastern face
of this mountain.
So, I mean, you know, we can be
getting rain or snow and then drive to
the front side of the mountain, the south
facing side, and and it will be clear.
We'll see blue skies there. But, you know,
Humboldt County, sorry, I've got the dogs out
here.
You know, Humboldt County is such a big
county, too. You know, I've got friends that
takes me two and a half hours to
drive to their house in county.
So there's definitely
a large swath of microclimates across the entire
county in the triangle in general. Yeah. Both
horizontal and vertical. Right? Yeah. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Right. So so let's get into it.
So, like, when and why did your family
come to the Emerald Triangle?
Well, this is historical.
On my mom's side, they were on the
Mendocino Coast
back in the, later eighteen hundreds.
You know, my family came to California originally
in originally in 1853
overland,
and actually came over and stayed with, Jim
Beckworth, who was a real famous,
trapper and kind of mountain man that founded
the town of Beckworth in, in Sierra and,
Sierra County.
And,
so they came over early, you know, chasing
the gold rush.
And
as that kind of dwindled down,
I had my mom's side. Her her great
grandfather
had a ranch farm,
into timber on the Mendocino Coast near the
town of Mendocino.
And then in the early nineteen hundreds on
my dad's side,
he had a great grandfather that was was
in Humboldt County area during their original kind
of bigger logging boom when San Francisco burnt
down and they were needing to rebuild, and
I mean most of the redwood that rebuilt
San Francisco came from Humboldt and Mendocino Counties.
So there was, you know, work to be
had
and plenty of it, and, it was still
kind of the the last frontier just pushing
westward. And
the families both kind of migrated back to,
like, the Plumas County area.
So my my parents were born there,
as I. I was born in Plumas County,
and then I came back up here in,
the early nineties right after high school and,
just been here ever since.
So,
I I am not in California. So how
far away is Plumas County from where you
are now?
It's about four hour drive from east.
Mhmm. So so it really is a different
reality?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's it's in the
the it's in the upper end of the
Sierras,
you know, not far from, like, Glasson National
Park and and,
Tahoe and and those areas. Mhmm.
So once your family settled in that Emerald
Triangle, I mean, at some point, there was
a transition
from,
you know, logging and gold rush and these
types of businesses
to,
realizing that cannabis was something to both be
enjoyed in the community and then exported.
How how and when did that transition happen
for your family?
Well,
I would honestly say, I mean, there's kind
of been always a you know, I mean,
we're we're a very blue collar family. There's
always kind of been a history of outlaws
throughout our our family history. My my grandma,
her
her father
was a well, actually, her mother was the
moonshiner.
She said that they would have been rich
if if the grandfather hadn't
drank everything. But,
she was in a moonshine back in the
thirties.
You know, they
they they always stayed in with with timber
was always predominant up here. Northern California,
you know, it's just so forest heavy. That's
always that's always kind of been the go
to,
the go to for for employment. You know,
the the gold ran out early.
What was interesting was that in the early
days, my great great grandfather, we have deeds
in the County Museum that show that they,
actually purchased their first land
in,
trade of vegetables and produce. Oh, wow. Because
in the early days of California,
before currency,
you know, it was you had two things.
You had gold and you had commodities. You
had sustainability,
you know, products that were tangible that you
put your hands on. So,
they had balloon payments every year of x
amount of potatoes, x amount of carrots, you
know, and it was just produce. It was
it was you had to sustain whoever you
were, you know, purchasing the land from. So
it was actually like, you know,
balloon payments and vegetables once a year. And
they bought their first ranch like that.
And so they've always had their hands in
farming,
you know, again, timber,
later firefighting,
ranching cattle.
And in the early night and and so
in 1978,
I was three years old.
That was kind of my first experience with
with law enforcement and cannabis.
My dad had a personal patch in the
backyard. It was, you know, six, eight, 10,
plant something. But my swing set was out
there,
and
I could swing and kick my feet through
the fan leaves. The the pot plants were
mixed in with the vegetables and stuff, too.
And, you know,
you know, we've we grew up really poor
and we needed those the the vegetables to
sustain ourselves and and, you know, they used
to raise chickens and rabbits for food and
the whole bit. And,
and I don't know why I remember that
so much of, you know, it maybe that
was just kind of the shock and trauma
of it that kind of seared that into
my brain. But I remember being out there
when the when law enforcement came and, you
know, as a kid, you're always taught, okay,
well, you know, police are good,
you know, go to them for help. And
here they come and they're stepping on our
food and they're pulling up my dad's plants
and taking him to jail and I'm, you
know, being led away. I think I got
taken to a toy store and, you know,
got a little Tonka truck or something out
of the whole ordeal, but came back and
house was overturned and everything was all over
the floor. And, you know, that was just
my first first real memory in life was
was a pop bust, which is just kind
of ironic where where I turned out now.
That's pretty traumatic too, man. Like, you know,
to be a kid and to have your
safety, you know, just literally trampled on.
You're you know, when you're so young, you
don't you don't just don't have anything to
relate that to or, you know, you don't
know how to ask the right questions. It's
just happening and you just don't understand why,
you know? And so from that point on,
my dad kind of, you know, kept it
under wraps. You know, I could I knew
when he was smoking here and there, I
could smell it from, you know, he didn't
put it in my face. He didn't talk
about it openly. And I really
kind of learned more from friends parents.
You know, you know, 16, 17, 18.
I grew my first plant in 1988.
It was eighth grade.
I just happened, you know, at the time,
you know, the Mexican brickweed was still prevalent.
And,
I, you know, had got lucky with a
couple of seeds out of there and one
of them turned female and and my first
plant and I actually have a picture of
it, that that survived.
But it's, you know, just a just a
Mexican sativa plant in the five gallon bucket
up in this marshy area, kind of. And
and that was my first plant was in
'88, and I was so proud of it.
And I got it to maturity and started
flowering out. And, you know, being a young
boy, I'd like to show it off and
brought a bunch of my friends up to
see it. And, one of them ended up
sneaking back up there a couple of weeks
later and cut it down, took it home.
And I heard he microwaved
the immature buds to dry them out. And
I lost my first plant to a friend,
and, you know, that was
If you get the rip on your first
plant.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You know? So you have
lessons lessons come quick and fast. And Yeah.
And, yeah.
And then it was kind of onward from
there. And so I came back up here
in, in the early nineties for
college and construction tech and wanted to be
a contractor. And,
I was
just amazed at the the flower that was
being grown around here. And,
I just I fell in love with the
culture, the subculture.
And,
I had, you know, a couple years later,
we had
an offer to get in on a piece
of land. Everybody was, you know, owner carry
back then, so you didn't have to deal
with banks or anything like that. And it
was something to the fact of, like, 80
acres with 5,000 down at 300 a month
kind of thing.
And, I thought I was just getting ripped
off. It's like, oh, I got to come
up with $300 a month. And And every
month.
Every month, dollars 300.
Like, oh, my gosh. Where am I going
to? You know? And, you know, it was,
cloak and dagger, you know, is just,
you know, driving out at nighttime, you know,
we you know, we're called Full Moon Farms
because,
it's a nod back to that era. I
did most of my work at night. One,
law enforcement wasn't working at night. They, you
know, they like to clock in early and
check out it at quitting time. And and
then
to everything, even if your neighbors were growing
and you kind of knew they were doing
something, you didn't talk to them about it.
You never brought that up. You never, you
know, if you were a local, you never
asked anybody what they did for a living.
That was just a no no. So if
somebody asked you what you did for a
living,
you knew they weren't from around here or
they shouldn't, you know, they weren't in the
game.
But, you know, we bring out our supplies
at night. We do a lot of our
watering at night, that kind of thing. And
and,
you know, it was it was really
going the extra mile, you know, you
beat down paths and tunnels through brush and
tick brush and rattlesnake infested, you know, grass
and you just be out there in the
rocks and trying to, you know, keep your
plants, you know, a lot smaller than we
do now and and to be, you know,
unseen from the air. And, you know, the
helicopters in that era were so,
so intense. Like, you'd be surprised at what
they could pick out of a hillside that
didn't have much weed on it. And
and they went after it. And so you
really had to be careful. And and also,
you know, the prices were up back then.
So it it warranted,
it warranted the extra energy and extra effort.
And you you had to you only had
to grow, you know, five or 10 pounds
to make a, you know, a yearly salary.
You know, you could go hold down a
nine to five all week long in town
and just come out a couple nights a
week and and take care of your plants.
And if you made it, sometimes you did,
sometimes you didn't. But if you did, well,
now you just had a good year and
basically doubled your salary.
Plus, you'd have your own smoke and your
passion.
Yeah. A 100%. A 100%. And I mean
and there was a, you know and,
you know, as a young male,
there was a very attractive allure to that,
like, that little outlaw spirit and that outlaw
culture because you weren't you were you were
breaking an unjust law. You know, you didn't
agree with it, but you weren't hurting anybody.
You weren't stealing from anybody. You know, you
didn't feel like a criminal.
It just kind of felt like, I guess,
maybe kind of akin to the moonshiners. You
know? It's just like making a little extra
money on the back 40 and just try
not to get caught.
You know, that whole area,
you know, it's got a mixed reputation. You
know? You see pictures like the ones that
you post on Instagram where it looks like,
oh, like, cool families, cool old seventies, eighties
families. Look at all the nature. Look at
all that. And then, like, then there's on
on the flip side, there's everybody talking about,
like, like, Murder Mountain, and it's so dangerous
and stuff like that. What was
what was your experience more? Was it mostly,
like, you you kept quiet and you kept
yourself and you just grew?
Or was the violence kinda everywhere and it
was it took effort to stay away from
it?
No. Not at all. I mean, Murder Mountain
is, you know, was really hyped up. That
was it. And,
you know, what a name to sell.
Yeah. Right. Right.
Basically, I mean, it should be called meth
mountain, not murder mountain. And, you know,
you know, and and, you know,
the pros and the cons of the early
era, you know, if you were selling your
your flowers,
you're usually selling it to somebody in the
city that sold other things, too. And that
was just the reality of it, because if
you're a hustler in the city, you know,
you're probably selling hard drugs or, you know,
whatever. And,
weed was just one thing on their menu.
So so people that were into drugs,
you know, they they could trade weed for
whatever meth or heroin or whatever back in
the day or coke or whatever they were
doing. But,
there was
there was definitely
an ease of access both directions for for
narcotics. Right. And so some some people got
caught up in that And some neighborhoods just
kind of gravitated to, you know, birds of
a feather type thing. So,
you know, Murder Mountain, they're just, you know,
there's there was a lot of meth in
the area,
you know, and I think that's more it
was more meth on meth violence than weed
on weed violence.
You know, if you saw violence in the
early days with cannabis,
you know, it is probably because it was
worth so much. You know, I mean, £5.05
could have been worth 25,000
in an era when the cost of living,
you know, gas was a buck 20 a
gallon kind of thing. So it really went
a lot further. And if you have somebody
coming out of the city, you know, where
they're holding up, you know, seven elevens for
$200,
why wouldn't they hold up a 19 year
old kid that's got, you know, a paper
sack in the trunk, you know, that's $25.
Yeah. Those kind of those kind of troubles
come back upstream from the city. Yeah.
Correct. Correct. You know, and and in the
early era, you know, I mean, we definitely
had some questionable interactions with people. And I
always
always told myself
that if I had to carry a gun
to a deal, it wasn't worth doing. Like,
there was nothing about this plant that was
worth getting hurt over or hurting somebody else
over. And so if I got ripped off
on a front or something, that was my
bad, their karma, but my my bad decision.
But, you know, in in the early days,
I've definitely, you know, walk into rooms and
you'd see, like, you know, sawed off AKs
with, you know, 60 round banana clips and
things laid out and just, like, it wasn't
my vibe. That wasn't my thing.
You know, I was raised around,
firearms,
but also,
with a different purpose.
Yes. Yes. I do. I do. And, yeah,
a 100%.
And so that was just just a whole
different a whole different energy, a whole different
vibe, and and I just told myself, okay.
Well and at that time, you know, you
never ever had to worry about selling everything.
Like, there was always a line. There was
always, you know, there was always a flood
and a drought, and, it always go. And
so you could pick and choose who you
wanted to work with and it just took
me a few years to kind of see,
okay, I don't need to put myself in
these weird situations and
and,
but they were there and some people stayed
in those situations and so, you know, when
I hear things like Murder Mountain, it's really
it's it wasn't
it's not the cannabis culture that made Murder
Mountain. It's it was the harder drugs and
and people making other bad choices. Right on.
Cool. So let let's go back to,
kind of like this this cultivating
young guy, and your your first, your first
plant got grabbed by a buddy. And but
I'm assuming that you, you know, kept going
because you wanted your smoke, and you were
showing your friends. And I'm assuming that there's
kind of like a youth subculture around it
as you all were, like, kinda learning the
game and stuff. When when you were coming
up at that age, you know, you're you're,
you know, you've got your day job. You're
doing construction
and you're you know, sounds like you're going
to school during this time too. All that's
good, but but you're also cultivating, it sounds
like. Who were your mentors in cultivation around
those periods when you're, like, learning how to
do it for the first time?
It was some of some of my older
friends that had already been into cultivating before,
you know, at a, you know, a little
different scale. And I'm and I'm not talking
massive. Back in those days, you know, again,
you know, twenty, twenty five pounds, which seemed
huge when you were 18.
But friends, parents,
they would kind of give you
points on
genetics and and tactics not to be seen
or how to cover your tracks to the
garden so you don't get caught in a
garden and that kind of thing
because, you know, a lot of people didn't
want to grow on their own land back
then because, you know, it just it led
to you if the cops showed up. So,
we have a lot of there's like 250,000
acres of timber company land from in one
ownership group up here. And so a lot
of people would kind of sneak out on
on timber property that had been
logged and the tick brush had grown up
and they didn't expect foresters to be back
in there, that kind of thing. And and
so you'd sneak on. It was basically trespass
growing. And so they would teach you how
to, like, you know, paint your water lines
and cover your tracks and not, you know,
use the same trails in and out, you
know,
too many times so you're not leaving a
path to your to your patch and,
you know, and they'd still get found sometimes.
And it was just so,
you know, my friend's parents,
and then sometime and and I was probably
selling more back then than I was growing.
And so sometimes I would help a friend's
parent out, and they'd see that I was
productive. And they'd say, okay. Hey. Let's let's
take you under our wing. This is what
you need to do. And and I just
I was I was a sponge back then.
You know, it was all yours because it
was so interesting. And if you have a
sales ability and you can move product, you're
gonna make friends real fast.
Oh, yeah. If you're making somebody money, they
like you right away.
You know what's interesting? Isn't that always the
truth? The word. You know, you keep on
talking about other people's parents,
you know, mentoring you more than your own,
and yet we know that your dad grew.
Were they not, like like, I don't wanna
put them in they weren't supported, but they
weren't
really,
the the primary encouragement
because they were maybe trying to keep you
and them safe. Is is that kinda how
it played out?
Yeah. When my dad got busted, he he
worked for the forest service, and and they
ended up getting off,
because the the warrant was bunk where they,
you know, how they said they spotted the
guard and that kind of thing. So they
got it thrown out, but, it was a
huge eye opener to him because we're talking,
you know,
'78, the charges were a whole different game.
And so it didn't take much to get
you really hemmed up, and he could have
been a felon. He could have lost his
job,
you know, maybe some freedom.
And,
and so, yeah, he he definitely kept it,
everything hidden from me.
But when I turned 18,
the first I went went back for Christmas
and and without saying anything to him, I
just I wrapped up some really good greenbud
and
a pipe from
a local head shop up in Arcadia
and, just get that was his Christmas present.
And he opened it and looked at me,
and it was kinda like we just went
from this transition of, like, father son to
friends. Oh. He's like, okay. We're on this
level now. And,
and so it's been good ever since. And
then, you know, of course, every time every
time I'd go back to the Quincy area,
you know, all of his friends be like,
hey. You coming into town? Come by and
say hi. And I'd be getting more phone
calls from his friends than he'd get from
them.
You know, that's that's such kind of a
tender moment, you know, when you're gifting your
dad weed and he's got this, like, bond
you know, they're like, that sounds like a
movie scene. It's, like, really touching for for
people like us. Right?
Right. You know, and
and we grew up, you know, Alachki kids.
So there wasn't and and, you know, there
wasn't a lot of oversight anyway in life.
You know, there wasn't a lot of,
in any way with me, there wasn't a
lot of, like, father son teaching moments. Yeah.
You know, there was things he would do.
He was our track coach and those kind
of things. He'd come and participate like that.
But there wasn't a whole lot of sitting
down and going, okay, you know, what are
we doing with life? And this is right
and wrong or, you know, don't hurt yourself.
He was just like, okay, you know, come
back by this time, hopefully.
And, you know, if you don't got a
broken arm today, great. Yeah. Well, that that's
that's very much how Gen X was brought
up too. Right? Like, you you did it
in the mountains. I did it in Detroit.
But either way, there was nobody home when
we got home.
Yeah. Right.
So so so, again, you know, those moments,
you know, we didn't ever had those real
heart to heart talks. And so, you know,
just a simple gift of gifting cannabis,
that was that was a big statement. Yeah.
Right on. So so as you're getting older
and, you know, your your connections and your
and your cultivation prowess is starting to expand.
And then, like, you know, the the nineties,
things were, like, hot and heavy.
And,
you know, as I as as I have
put together on your stories, your you had
a spot out, Highway 36 area.
Like, what what was what was a typical
day like that? Like, when when you're realizing
that this is this is starting to work
out for you, you know? Mhmm.
Actually, I'm sitting on that spot right now.
Oh, oh, right on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm
kinda coming full circle. I'm kinda regressing back
to my roots,
in full circle right now with this with
the way the industry is going. But,
so back then, you know, I I definitely
had a
healthy fear of the helicopters like most people
did, but some some people I'll just say,
you know, maybe their, you know, their balls
were a little bigger and they wanted to
go a little bigger and and take take
a little more risk for more reward. I
wasn't that guy. I always believed in staying
smaller than the neighbor.
You know, if if they were gonna spend
any time, you know, hitting farms, I didn't
want it to be ours. And,
and, again, you know, the
the the price back then was so much
higher, you didn't have to grow much. So
you could, you know, pretty minimal exposure. I
mean, there's a lot of shade weed was
growing. You know, I look back on some
of that product, you know, and I'm just
thinking, gosh, how inferior that was. You wouldn't
be able to sell it today sometimes, you
know, just because of the, you know, it's
you'd you'd take it a week early,
just so because that was something. And, you
know, it it sucks to say, but it
was so it was so scarce back then.
You could take
immature shade weed and
sell it for a premium and it would
go.
And and, you know, sometimes those factors dictated,
you know,
risking another week with the helicopters because if
they took it, you just lost everything and
then you're just, you know, starting over again.
So because it was only one paycheck a
year until everybody started kinda moving underground and
going into the the diesel days and, you
know, that was that was also
a a a progressional trend in the mid
nineties because of
the the the scrutiny from the air. Mhmm.
Mhmm.
I can see how, like, you know, nowadays,
we talk about people panic cutting because of
the weather. Right? Like, you know, when the
weather starts to turn,
like, you often need to suck it up
a little bit and and risk risk some,
losing some crop to botrytis or whatever your
flavor is where you live. And
to know that you're gonna get, you know,
your other 90 or 80% of the crop
is gonna actually finish. Right? But what you're
describing is a different kind of panic cut,
which is like, oh, they popped my neighbor
two days ago.
I could be next. I need to cut
because law enforcement might be coming. That's a
whole different level of panic cutting.
Well, let let me just tell you. You
know, I mean, it we would get hovered,
you know, four to five times, like, literally
hovered
four to five times a year. So that
was always always
Dude, I would lose my shit. That sounds
terrible. Oh, they, yeah. They knew they knew
what, you know, what subdivisions, what and when
we say subdivisions, you know, up where I'm
at, there's nothing smaller than a 40 acre
parcel. But, you know, some of these big
ranches that broke apart and stuff, they,
they sub divided, so they knew where the
hot spots were. And,
I'm sorry. I got a got a Pyrenees
barking in the background.
So they knew where the hot spots were,
and they would always poke around and check
you out. And I and they were just
kind of tallying
the most bang for the buck back then.
And, they would usually hit our mountain almost
religiously every three years.
And when they would come, they would set
up down at a local airport.
They'd fly the nets in and out, but
they'd have a ground crew. And, you know,
there was no warrants or anything. They just
go gate cutting. And, you know, a lot
of
times, they cut gates on on properties
to drive through them that didn't have any
weed, but they wanted to put eyes on
stuff like that. A lot of it a
lot of reasons and excuses that were, you
know, just kind of tossed about freely to
come through somebody's land,
unwarranted. And, oh, no. You know, we got
a trailer. We just had to get turned
around. We had to cut your gate and,
you know, whatever.
But they're putting eyes on things, you know.
And
we did we got we get hovered four
or five times a year, so that fear
was always there. There was always an anxiety
until you got to October.
Then it's a big sigh of relief. Yeah.
Alright. So we're gonna talk more about, like,
the Outlier and the camp stuff in set
two. But before we go to our first
commercial break, I didn't know where to put
these questions, and so I'm putting them right
here. Let's talk about extreme sports.
Because, you know, that's how I that's how
I actually found out about you and your
crew is I was, like, cruising through Instagram,
and I see all these great all this
great weed. And then I continue scrolling, and
I see you guys, like, like, skydiving and
hang gliding and skiing and, you know, off
the cliff. And I'm like, who the hell
are these guys? This looks like, you know,
like like point break or some shit. You
know?
And Yeah. And and then and then I
think the first time we interacted was,
I was I was saying, hey. Do you
mind if I recommend,
you know, your profile to the people I
knew at Red Bull? And I started sending
them your stuff because I wanted them to
do a profile on you guys. You know?
And so so how did how did the
extreme sports part become part of Full Moon
Farms? Because it really does seem to be
a whole crew thing.
Yeah. So, I mean, you know, a lot
of our crew over the years, was
was family or they might as well have
been family. You know, they're they're
our parents were all friends. Everybody kinda grew
up around each other together. I mean, I
mean, they might as well be cousins, you
know,
even if there wasn't blood involved.
But, we all grew up on skis,
and, you know, there's some phenomenal skiers that
have worked with us and,
you know, snow sports have always been a
major thing. My cousin and I,
we're getting into the skydiving a bit.
You know, it's just just chasing the thrills,
you know, scuba diving with sharks, those kind
of things. But a lot of what you're
seeing,
is some they're they're real pros,
from Idaho. A couple of buddies of mine
live out in Idaho. And I mean, they
do that for a living. Those guys are,
they go to, you know, Chamonix in the
winter and and just their, you know,
top 15 world class, you know, kayakers and,
they're they're on a different level. And,
you know, and our friendships and stuff
have evolved and and they started rocking some
of our our wings with the logo and
stuff and throwing us some love. And so
a lot of the super extreme stuff you're
seeing, those guys are, legit, legit pros out
of Idaho. That's a really positive influence to
have on your on your posse. Right? You
got some guys who are like, no. No.
No. Let's let's let's go bigger and harder
because I know enough to, like, not kill
you.
Probably.
Well, you you know, it's,
you know, in in cannabis and out the
outdoors in general. Right?
That's always gone together.
And,
you know,
outdoor activities, surfing, skiing,
you know, backpacking, camping, you know, cannabis goes
together with all of that so good. And
so why not just take it to the
highest limit if you're working with really high
level cannabis? Let's let's take the the the
wing flying to another level also. And,
you know, just it's a happy marriage. And
right now, like what we're doing with the
Humboldt Family Farms project,
they are working with like Surfer magazine and
Skateboard magazine and Power magazine. And,
they're really trying to drive that point home
that,
you know, good, clean, organic
sun grown,
goes well with those outdoor mindsets because it's
a a certain individual that likes to spend
most of their time outside. You know, it's
and it's that mindset's exactly that's that's who
we wanna connect with.
Sun grown, sun sports, you know, wanting the
best top tier extreme. It's all it's all
about having the best connection with yourself and
with nature.
Yeah. And and, you know, those circles are
all really good people. I mean, they're genuine
good souls. So,
if you surround yourself with good people, good
things happen. And,
it's hard to find,
assholes in the backcountry, so to speak. Like,
there's, you know, a lot of grounded people.
Yeah. Right on. Right on. Cool. So with
that, we're gonna take our first short break
and be right back. You are listening to
Shaping Fire, and my guest today is legacy
cannabis cultivator,
Nick Erickson of Full Moon Farms. And, you
know, without these advertisers, Shaping Fire would not
happen. So please support them and let them
know you heard them on Shaping Fire.
The new finely screened living compost from Leighton
Morrison at Kingdom Aquaponics is in a product
category all by itself.
Nearly all compost you can buy is thermophilic,
meaning that the compost pile has been heated
in order to destroy all the pathogens.
This composting process leaves you with only thermophilic
organisms
while killing everything else.
Living compost from Kingdom Aquaponics is never heated
above 115 degrees.
So it still thrives with the phosphate and
potassium
solubilizers,
degraders and decomposers along with the more advanced
nutrient cycling organisms.
But you might be thinking, Shango, if the
compost is never heated, isn't it filled with
pathogens that might hurt my garden?
All of Layton's compost components are specifically chosen
and pre processed to remove pathogens
before the cool mesophilic composting process.
The mushroom substrate he uses is sterilized in
advance for growing mushrooms.
The wood fines are from shredded kiln dried
lumber and that kiln heat removes any pathogens.
And the repurposed Coco Coir is sterilized with
heat in advance too.
These materials are then combined with a mix
of worm castings, fish poop, and special biological
inoculants that Layton incubates and blends himself.
The resulting compost has biological stability,
structure and water storage capacity,
is packed with nutrient cycling protozoa and nematodes,
and is fungal and bacteria rich including purple
sulfur bacteria.
He even provides the biological reports.
This Ultra Premium Living Compost is for anyone
who wants to make compost teas, extracts, or
topdress.
You're getting three ingredients in one: worm castings,
fish mulm, and biologically active compost all in
one product.
Get it right the first time. Buy Living
Compost now at kingdomaquaponicsllc.com.
Available in three convenient sizes. That's kingdomaquaponicsllc.com.
As consumers become more educated and regulations become
more demanding, it is increasingly important to avoid
the use of chemical pesticides when cultivating cannabis.
Beneficial insects have been
greenhouse vegetable and ornamental plant industry and today
many cannabis cultivators are moving from sprays and
chemicals to beneficial insects.
Natural Enemies has the beneficial insects, mites and
nematodes,
microbials,
sticky cards and air distribution units you need
to partner with nature to defend your garden.
Whether you manage acres of canopy or have
a simple grow tent in your home, Natural
Enemies is ready to help answer your questions
and help you transition away from chemical sprays
towards clean and natural solutions.
Natural Enemies was founded in the cannabis industry
and continues to provide cannabis specific guidance.
Natural Enemy's beneficial insects are grown with care
and precision by Kopert Biological Pest Control.
Since 1967,
Kopert has assisted growers in identifying pests and
devising reliable solutions
while providing healthy insects and mites that will
protect your yield.
Since the nineteen nineties, Kopert has been a
leader in cannabis pest and disease control worldwide
and have highly trained consultants to assist you
in Canada and The United States from coast
to coast.
Natural Enemies and Coppert can help. Visit naturalenemies.com
and get detailed information.
You know getting away from pesticides is good
for health and good for business and Natural
Enemies is ready to help. Visit naturalenemies.com
today.
Businesses everywhere are striving to reach people through
advertising.
We all know though that trying to reach
a cannabis audience with a quality message is
pretty difficult.
That's why many people choose to advertise on
the Shaping Fire podcast.
Advertising on this show allows us time to
talk about your product, service, or brand in
a way that really lets people know what
sets your company apart from the others.
Bold people who own companies know that getting
into relationship with their customers is essential, and
that's what we offer.
We will explain your service or product and
what sets it apart as desirable
and help our audience get in contact with
you. It's pretty simple really. Advertising does not
have to be all whiz bang, smoke, and
mirrors.
Nowadays, I find that people prefer to just
be spoken to calmly,
accurately, and with good intentions.
If you wanna make your own commercial spot,
you can do that too.
Most of the options for your advertising are
dying in the modern media sphere, but podcast
listening is skyrocketing.
With a commercial on ShapingFire, you'll reach your
customers in the privacy of their headphones right
now and we'll continue to reach new listeners
as they explore the Shaping Fire back catalog
of episodes
again and again for years.
And we won't work against you while taking
your money like Instagram.
A spot on Shaping Fire costs less than
a printed postcard per person, and the Shaping
Fire audience is full of smart cannabis enthusiasts,
cultivators, and entrepreneurs who are always curious to
learn. Do yourself a solid and contact us
today for rates on podcast advertising.
Email hotspot@shapingfire.com
to find out more.
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to Shaping
Fire, and I am your host, Shangelos.
My guest today is legacy cannabis cultivator,
Nick Erickson of Full Moon Farms.
So, Nick, during the first set, we'd, touched
a bit on what it was like to
have, law enforcement always up in your business,
doing
flyovers of your house several times a year
and showing up to pop people in your
neighborhood,
you know, pretty regularly.
What would is what was it like during
camp? Like, I get this idea that they
were set up in the community
in some ways in Humboldt.
And so I I I imagine, like, these
these law enforcement officers, you know, being at
the market and being at the, you know,
being at the diner and being around at
the same time.
You're trying to live your life working your
regular job and then also your cannabis, you
know,
job, let's say. And I I feel it
kinda hits me like there was always this
low level threat just, like, all the time.
But but maybe I'm reading into it because
Humboldt really is spread out.
Well yeah. No. And and, I mean, there
was a low level threat just in in
the community in general too, because there was
a lot of people that
really looked down on cannabis. And so you
had a really, you know, you operated in
all circles, but you you didn't want the
wrong neighbor finding out, you know, or the
wrong person finding out because there was resentment,
maybe a little jealousy,
you know, if if you were able to
put new tires on your car every year
or you ended up with, like, a new
a new rig every now and then, something
like that. So there was you know, we're
we're coming out of an era where,
where
it wasn't just law enforcement. You had to
really be careful of, like, who was next
door. And it was kind of it was
kind of a weird
a weird dynamic because,
especially as things kind of moved indoor,
that the price
the prices were so high and that you
could get multiple harvests that there was a
lot of people that didn't smoke cannabis. They
weren't part of the cannabis culture, but they
converted their garages just so they could get
an extra six or 10 pounds every three
months, you know? And so, you know, smells
drifting, those kind of things. So people would,
you know, would,
basically just kind of snitch on each other.
And so you had to be really, really
cautious because the consequences were so much heavier
back then. Yeah. And with camp, it was,
you know, it was a collective
of different law enforcement agencies that would come
together.
And so
what I saw with it was, you know,
you had this,
like, kind of collective pissing contest, right? Because
you
you you had your normal boys you'd work
with every day. But now all of a
sudden, you maybe you got some guys from
Butte and you got some guys from Mendo
and you got, you know, maybe some CHP
officers or somebody from the state working with
you. And it just becomes this kind of,
you know, this weird little, like, camaraderie, but,
chest bumping and a pissing contest. And so
they would
they were aggressive.
They were aggressive. You know, I mean, they're
supposed to be five hundred foot, you know,
hard decks for them to to stay above.
You know, they come below that. You know,
when we first when we first had our
very, very, very first greenhouse,
which just seemed extremely
risky to me because you were announcing that
you had cannabis on your property. But there
was these curtilage laws that said, okay, if
you're within 300 feet of a residence, they
needed a warrant to look inside them and
this type of thing. But people were starting
to grow under canopy, and I had a
20 by 50 right out in front of
our cabin.
And,
this is, you know, before
snap fans and and airflow technology that that
everybody uses today. But,
so I would use I would leave the
ends of the greenhouse off and align the
greenhouse with the wind patterns. So we had
this, like, natural airflow through the greenhouse. And
the the the ends of the greenhouse, the
plastic would just kind of be folded up
on the ground. And so when you would
hear those Hueys coming and that's what they
use back in those days was a Huey.
And
they have a very distinct thump, thump, thump,
thump, thump, thump. Yeah. And you can hear
it coming down your canyon, you know? And
and my cousin and I would have to
run out and get on ladders and we'd
stretch the the tarps up to the to
the ends and and try to block their
view.
And I mean, we've we've been caught with,
you know, they'd come and drop down on
us with their prop wash and we'd be
on the ladders with our heads down so
they couldn't take pictures of us. And we'd
just be holding on the plastics with our
bare hands and they would just be hitting
us with prop wash trying to blow the
tarps off.
And, you know, you're just up on this
chatter being or ladder being shook and,
you know, and and then they take off,
and you didn't know if they're gonna come
back with a warrant or not. You know,
you didn't know if they got a glimpse
inside or or that kind of thing. So
that that was,
that was all the time. You know, they
they were on people, but,
they also you know, being a tight knit
community, you know, there was a lot like
I said, you know, a lot of people
that grew didn't weren't really in the culture
or smoke. So there's, like, a lot of
ranchers and landowners
that large landowners
that, you know, participated,
but they're also friends with the sheriff. Maybe
they have to come out and do a
little hunting, or maybe they took an envelope,
or maybe they got into a four wheeler,
those kind of things. So there was there
were certain properties
that
there was X's on and ones that were
no go's. And so some people got passes
because of that. And,
you know,
there's kind of a long history of corruption
in the sheriff's department here. And some of
them some some of them have been released
because of it. And, we actually had an
ex camp agent that was one of our
neighbors for,
oh, twenty years. And, he grew a few
plants.
And this was post camp, you know, he
was out of out of it. Yeah. But
he he grew a few plants and he'd
tell us, he'd be like, oh, yeah. You
know, we'd have a map. And, you know,
if we saw something on this guy's land,
we were told, okay, that that stays.
And, we'll we'll just go after these smaller
operators and low hanging fruit. And
It's it's it's funny how envelopes have not
changed.
No.
No. But, you know, I mean, you know,
if you're, like, you know, if you're, you
know, risking your life being a first responder
like that for $3,040,000 a year back in
those days and and you see more than
that every day being taken off the Hill
and nobody's going to report it,
You know,
it it it's easy to get, I guess,
a sticky finger, say, you know, so and
that and that happened, you know? Absolutely. I
mean, I I knew people that were
middlemen back in the day that used to
take wet rape buds from camp officers in
duffel bags. So there was a hypocrisy to
it for sure.
Not to say that there wasn't some super
gung ho, you know, Eagle Scout minded, you
know, let's just go let's just go after
the hippies, these dope smoking hippies and get
them. There was definitely those guys too, but
there was also some on the side that
just kinda looked the other way
and got what extra they could. Mhmm. Mhmm.
So when you when you describe the the
the the helicopters coming down low and you're
holding the canopy on trying to make sure
they can't get a picture of the weed,
this is, like, this is again another wonderful
movie scene. Right?
How old are you around this time? Are
you still, like, a young man, or are
you, like, in your, you know, twenties and
at this point?
Probably I mean, that was 22
and on probably in that range. But I
mean, this is I've been doing I've been,
you know, my first plant was at 14.
My first camp experience was at 18,
and it's been every year. I mean, we
got flown last year and I'm, you
know, I'm licensed. You know, I was out
there actually putting metric tags on plants, and
they're hovering me. Wow. So this this is
like a constant seasonal thing your entire life.
Even now when you're licensed, that's it's Yeah.
What a what a odd thing to have
part of your personal lore is to be,
you know, spending intense periods trying to hold
the canopy down
on on your greenhouses. It's it's just a
you know?
It's, Right. They they've down sized their helicopters
to more fuel efficient models. They're quieter. They're
smaller. But, you know, if they get a
butt the thing is, you know, if they
get grant money,
they they're gonna use it. Yeah. And there's
just not very many people left. There's not
very many legal farms left, let alone illegal
farms.
You know, the indoor scenes all but dead.
The outdoor scene is, you know, on its
last leg right now and and they're still
getting budgets to fly. And,
this year,
there's a five county coalition to look into
human trafficking. That's the new,
war drum. And,
I get that human trafficking occurs, and that's
absolutely horrible.
You know? But if they are looking at
legal farms and, you know, off off,
site processing, those type of things,
it's it just it's more grant money that
needs to be
spent and results gotta come from it. And
so this year, we have a whole new
thing happening, and the Humboldt County Sheriff has
taken the lead for the five county aid,
coalition.
So this year, it's gonna get weird. You
know, now they're instead of looking for necessary,
like, the environmental fines like they have been
in the last,
you know, seven, eight years with Fish and
Wildlife and the Water Board, now it's now
they're looking into human trafficking violations.
And, you know, I I'll say that, you
know, for the most part,
a lot of the the trimmers that are
working, they definitely make more than the farms
make,
per unit. And they don't have any risk.
You know, it's on the day you know,
they'll make more in one day on that
unit that they trim than the farm makes
spending
twelve months to, you know, grow it, process
it, go through the cycles,
risk out. So,
you know, and they're they're treated really well.
Like the scenes I've seen, it's nothing like
it used to be where you have like
a room of 30, you know, trimmers going
anymore. It's just, you know, couple here, a
couple there type of thing. But I do
acknowledge there's there's hot spots where there is
still is, you know,
organized crime,
elements and and that's going on. But, you
know,
it lumpy
in the the legal farms into that conversation
is is always scary because,
there's hasn't been a good farm, bad farm,
separation in their eyes yet. So it's still
very much us against them even though we
are, you know, licensed and spending, you know,
God knows how much every year on on,
you know, appeasing all the different agencies and
the surprise inspections. Everything is very fine, hidden
and fine driven. And,
it's
there it's still very much is us against
them. Mhmm. You know?
They they're not looking to put legal farms
in prison
anymore, but they definitely are looking how to
fine us and and beef up their revenues.
When when the when the law enforcement
heated up and it was very
politically popular
to
to beat on the heritage growers in the
triangle,
did you go ahead and kinda follow the
trend with everybody
and go, like, indoor or underground
or one way or another,
not do as much,
outdoor because that seemed to be what law
enforcement was pushing you to have to do?
Yeah. We did.
And, again, stayed smaller than the neighbors.
You know, some guys really,
really did well. They went big and they
they went,
the monetary,
influence of that era was different. You started
seeing some some rags to rich stories
and and
mountain millionaires being made in three months, six
months. It was it was pretty wild.
I never had that drive. It wasn't all
about just making a bunch of money,
but I was wanting to stay out of
jail. So, you know, we definitely,
did some smaller things on the side,
indoors.
And,
you never wanted to plant your outdoor plants
on a property that had an indoor because
if they came for your outdoor plants in
the summer, they could stumble into the tree
line and find your indoor.
And so,
you know, you had to keep those things
separate.
And, yeah, that I mean, that flourished out
of necessity. And honestly, that's kind of where
the the trim rooms really came from, was
from the indoor era because
indoor flower just from the bag appeal looked
so much better than outdoor. Outdoor always had
this kind of generic look to it,
especially with the genetics that were being grown
in the early nineties.
And then so when they went to indoor,
it was such a pretty flower. They wanted
them trimmed up tighter. And so
the trim room really began. The whole trim
scene began in from the indoor era.
There was tremors prior to that, but the
job that they did was, I mean, you
know, giant seed stems sticking through the bags
and crows everywhere.
And, you know, it was just basically, you
could put on a pair of gloves and
just kinda, like, knock off the fan leaves,
and that was it. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Where where I am on Vashon Island, when
things went indoor,
it often also went literally underground.
And so people would, you know, backhoe out
a place for a container
and, you know, try to keep a lot
of that,
thermal signature,
muffled by putting it underground.
Was there a lot of that where you
are too, or or was it more like
you were talking before, like,
garages and things like that?
All the above. Yeah. Anything you can imagine?
Everything and anything.
I mean, there was so much side work,
you know, there for a long time. I'd
I would,
just as a side hustle, I go help
people set up their own rooms. You know,
I just get paid by the hour kinda
thing. But I'm talking, you know, yeah, absolutely.
Garages,
closets
to,
people that built
complete two story houses with swimming pool out
front and playsets and the whole and the
and everything inside was just a shell. You
know, it's just it was just for the
aerial appearance. So when they flew over, it
just looked like a a family residence,
to burying stuff, you know, buses and cargo
containers, like you said,
you know, bunkers being put down.
People people went out of their way to
make sure be again, because there was
it warranted it, with with the price points
at that at that time and being able
to harvest three times a year. You know,
most people didn't run. They're indoors in the
summer.
So you'd get, you know, three three good
runs and,
then maybe take the summer off. Mhmm.
So but, yeah, absolutely. It was all the
above. Everything I mean, as creative as you
can get with it, it it happened.
So So you mentioned that with the, with
the
with
the expansion
of indoor
that there were a lot more trimmingants or
trim folks around, you know, like, trimmingrants around.
And, you know, I recall from, you know,
being
down in, you know, Garberville back in the
day, you know, seeing all of the people
from all over the world who'd be, like,
on the side of the street just looking
to get picked up and
go trim. Back in the day, is that,
like, 2010,
when you're seeing World Travelers? Yeah. Uh-huh. Totally.
I mean, like, back in the day, I'm
just saying, like, before prop 64. Right? Okay.
Like, I mean, I know your back in
the day goes for back further than my
back in the day. I didn't know. When
you used to said World Travelers and that
that's why I was clicking in on that
time frame because it was kind of a
progression of the trim scene too. So so
this is what I'm this is actually exactly
what I'm digging for is that interesting answer.
I'm curious to hear
how you've,
how the the trimmingrins showing up kind of
evolved. And then I'm assuming that since I
don't see them anymore, that scene was kind
of, like, disappeared,
with prop 64.
And we don't have to go into this
too deeply, but, you know, it was it
was a significant part of the culture to
all those people down in in Garberville and
Redway in front of the grocery store and
stuff. So so I would just like to
hear, like, an insider's description of what it
was like to have them there and then
have them not there.
So when trimming first started,
you know, it was definitely
family or close, close friends. They had to
be able to keep their mouth shut. And,
you know, it was, you know, when when
pounds were selling for 5,000 a pound, it
was $200 to the trimmer to trim your
flower.
And,
you know, and, you know, you fast forward
up to about, you know, 2020, they were
still getting close to that when when pounds
had dropped down to like the $1,100
mark. And, you know, now now where they're
at, you know, there's got to be an
adjustment in trim price. But the trimmers held
their their rates for a long time. But
it went from friends and family, very close
friends and family,
to
you started kind of seeing like, you know,
cats coming over from Colorado or Vermont and
taking flower home.
And then they realized, hey, you know, why
don't we hang out a little bit? And
some of them would stay and then and
start trimming. So then you started getting,
you know, kind of the kind of the
heavier
groups from
Colorado
or, you know, out east,
you know, local girls, maybe maybe you didn't
know them as well, but they were, you
know, pass on from a friend with good
recommendations. There'd be a lot of local girls
in the scene.
You know, for the most part, back then,
it was largely,
the ladies would would handle the processing.
And then
and then we started kind of seeing, okay,
well, now there's Argentinians and Chileans and, you
know, Spaniards and things like that coming through.
So we got this real international flavor, which
which was actually really cool because it just,
I love backpacking around the world and I
love diving into cultures. So the cultures were
coming here and, you know, just kind of,
you know,
you know, from their cuisine to just their
stories and, you know, all the different places
they're from. And then
then as the market started shifting and taking
a downturn,
it started kind of pricing those people out
because if you're making $200 a pound, it's
really hard to take a 100 a pound.
Yeah. You know, it's really hard to tell
somebody that you're doing a great job, but
we need to cut your pay in half,
which is, you know, now it's 75%
down from where it used to be. You
know, I think trimmers are, you know, 50
to 75 right now,
and
they're far and few between. But it's it's,
it's definitely progressed in in the sense of
it's, you know, you can't you can't hire
your family for 75 a time anymore. They
won't show up. You know,
a lot of people are going to machine
machine trimming, which we don't want to do.
I'd rather hand trim,
you know, what we're doing. Machine trimming just
to,
you know, it beats on the flowers a
little bit.
And it's just if you're working and putting
your love and heart into a product, you
just don't want to see it get tumbled
around and pulled apart
and
shaved unnecessarily
or trichomes, you know, knocked off those type
of things. So,
but it's it, you know, it has then
the trim the trim scene has has
definitely
dropped off. You know, there used to be
sometimes an hour and a half line just
to get gas at the local
gas station out here. And, you know, you
never see that anymore. Mhmm. There's never lines
at the at the cashiers anymore.
But the trickle down economics too for Humboldt
County, you know, since since legalization and the
crash of everything,
I think Humboldt County is down, like, 65%
in in trickle down taxable revenues just across
the board. And, I mean, stores, restaurants,
there's a lot of stuff getting, you know,
plywood put on the windows right now. It's
not just, you know And when I spent
time down there, you see the impact at,
like,
the school bake sale
and at at the the the, the the
the the making
fundraising for the local fire department. Like, all
of that stuff used to be taken care
of by Hill money.
And but that Hill money is not there
anymore, and I I feel the difference when
I go to visit my people down there.
I'm like, wow. It doesn't feel like it
used to. And, you know, of course, and
then friends die and stuff. And that's all
just, like, really sad to see how that
happens.
One of the things that I always loved
about, you know, visiting termigrants, especially if they
were you know, it was a farm who
that was bringing not bringing in people, but
they they had hired people from elsewhere
is you mentioned the food. Oh my god,
man. The you know, you you get yourself
some,
Hmong
food and or or this or that. And,
you know, these these these these ladies, like,
they you know, I don't know. I don't
even know how they get there, but there's,
like, somebody's grandma's there, and she's trimming like
a master, and she's also whipping out insane
lunch. And I'm, like, I'm so grateful to,
like, just be here.
Yeah. And and the mallong are such a
giving culture.
They're so family oriented, and they just
they they want to please you. And it's,
you know, they're they're they're an amazing culture,
and their food is amazing. Yeah. 100%.
Absolutely. I can see And on the Go
ahead. Oh, I'm not gonna say, yeah, I'm
on the board of directors out here with
our fire departments, a volunteer fire department. And,
you know, we've had to shut a few
fundraisers down just because of the lack of
participation.
So you you nailed it. I mean, this,
you know, schools, fire departments, everything,
you know, really, really depended on that extra
cash flow coming in. And it's it's just
not here.
I did not realize that you were helping
them, like, you were a part of their
fundraising because, you know, I have made donations
to your local fire department, but I didn't
even really think about them existing. I was
involved with your,
you know, you selling cool stuff and giving
the money to the fire department, which would,
like, suddenly put your fire department on my
map, you know. And I'm, like, I'm not
even local.
Right. Right. And, you know, and and that
was the kind of the thing with our
merchandise,
is
we never
wanted to sell it for profit. We'd rather,
you know, send it out with the just
good intentions
and,
you know, make things that were comfortable and
sustainable. We liked a lot of hemp and
organic cottons and things like that. And just
we wanted people to to wear things and
feel good about them and have a story
behind it. So a lot of times when
people ask, hey, how do I buy a
hoodie or whatever? I'm just like, donate to
something that you care about in your community
and we'll send you something. That way, it
just kind of starts that thought thought process
of
community involvement,
sparking something that that interests them personally
and then
having them take action on that and and
donate whatever it is. It could be $20
and we'll send you, you know, a $50
hoodie. Like, it's we just that was that
was the mindset.
And,
and, you know,
we still try to keep that up today.
You know, the last the last two years
with with
we have a lot of back stock still
boxed up. But with,
the downturn with the industry,
like, our focus has just been on survival
and just trying to sharpen the pencil and
focus on the actual cultivation and making this
thing work. So we haven't been real active
on sending out gear, and we still get
a lot of requests. And that's something we
need to get back into because it's a
feel good thing. And it's, you know, it's
it's
it sparks that positivity in in in people's
minds of, like, oh, you know, there there's
there's some light going on here. Yeah. Well,
it certainly got my attention. I mean, reading
all the different ways that you put that
and hearing you describe it, it, you know,
you exhibit the values
that we
I think that those of us who are,
you know, are are consumers of your flower,
we we like to know that we're smoking
good
regenerative
outdoor that comes from heart. And and, you
know, that kind of, you know, make a
donation to the thing you care about, and
we'll send you out dope gear. You know,
that that's a
big example of that mentality. Also,
you have really, really good gear, man. Like
you guys always Thank you. You guys always
chose the best stuff. Your your hats are
really nice. Your shirts are comfortable.
You know, like,
you sent me a a a nice box
a few years ago with stuff. And and
sure, you know, the the stuff that I
liked and fit me, I wore, but that
stuff, like, trickled down to, like, my my
team and my girl and, like, you know,
everybody. Everybody's like, we love this gear, and
it's and it's funny to see the pictures
that that stuff ends up in be just
because people love to wear it. I get
you know, people give me so many shirts
because of the show, but most of them
are on, like, you know, like, crappy materials
or or that new synthetic fit, you know,
stuff. Yeah. And I don't really wanna wear
most of that stuff, but your stuff, it's
like, oh, butter. You know?
Thank you. Thank you. And now, honestly, that's
really what we're we are going for. We
just I I love wearing hoodies, and I
love wearing comfortable shirts. And if I open
my closet and I see something that fits
wrong or just feels thin or feels cheap,
I'll skip over it. It stays hanging in
my closet, but I'll skip over it, and
I'll grab something that I wore two days
ago or something, you know, that just feels
good. You know, I wanna be comfortable. And
if if people are comfortable and if they'll
wear it and,
you know, if the logo's out there, at
least it's a conversation starter, and and they
could say, oh, you know you know, back
to the charity thing or whatever. But that
that's exactly what I I I love hearing
that. So thank you because that's that was
what we were going for. We just wanted
comfort. We wanted people to feel good in
it. Nice. Well, you you hit it.
So I wanna go back to the topic
of, the community of growers and growers helping
growers because
I can imagine
that,
you know, not only,
are Hill cultivators
a
let's see. How do I wanna say this?
Close knit because you all have got shared
interest and risks.
But also,
you have described a lot back in the
day how you really couldn't talk game with
people really. But now, like, there's there's the
Internet. So it's easier for you to talk
to each other from your farm without leaving.
There's signals so that our privacy can be
respected.
I can imagine that
this has changed for, I don't know, probably
good and less,
the relationship between individual farmers. What are your
thoughts?
I would say by
far more pros than cons. Mhmm.
I've met some really great like minded individuals
and,
that I would have never bumped into without,
you know, social media,
you know, sharing, you know, genetics or growing
practices
or events or, you know, just, you know,
troubleshooting,
you know, industry issues or whatever.
But there's
there seems to be, like, you know, again,
you know, birds of a feather flock together.
You you recognize who's
on the same wavelength even if they're two
hours away or three hours away.
And
Hey, Nick. Sorry about that. I guess that's
what happens when, I am on a remote
island and then trying to connect with you
who's on a remote mountain.
We're bound to lose the signal sometimes. So
so we were we were talking about the
impact,
good and bad, that the Internet coming to
the mountain has had on the farms. Would
you would you continue on where you left
off?
Yeah. You know,
I I I like I said, it's it's
definitely more pros than cons. And, you know,
it's it's connected me with
other like minded farmers that,
carry the same ethos.
They have the same direction. They have the
same values.
They were here prior. They were legacy. They
wanna be here, you know, post legalization, whatever
form that takes. You know, they want they
want this to be,
something they can pass down generally generationally.
And,
you know, it's been it's been amazing connecting
with these people because, you know, we can
talk
genetics, we can share genetics, we can share
methodologies.
You know, we can, you know, line out
events where we can get together and participate
and celebrate the plant.
And,
you know, also, you know,
most most of these farmers, we don't have
MBAs, you know, so there's there's a business
aspect to it, and we're all kind of
learning as we go. We're all losing money.
We try not to lose money the same
way twice. And, you know, we're just kind
of rolling with it and and progressing so
we can ask business questions, marketing questions,
you know, you know, how things are going
with sales and those type of deals. And
but also,
you know, a big part of it is
it's it's,
you know,
the darker side of where the industries kind
of went to
is we need community to rally around each
other because
there is such a large fall off happening
right now. Yeah. In, in legal farms. And
we're losing our culture. We're losing our community.
You know, we need we need to talk
to each other just for mental health therapy.
And we had a we had a neighbor
commit suicide on our main road. You know,
there's families that are losing their generational farms
that maybe their grandparents or their parents had.
You know, there's divorces happening. There's people having
to restart life at 50
and go get a nine to five at,
you know, at the bottom bottom rung of
the ladder.
And there's a lot of heavy, heavy mental
stuff happening that we never saw coming.
And so being able just to kind of
like
be a crutch for each other and help
each other through some of these tough times
because it's not just
not just the industry and the finances, but
there's a there's a mental weight happening. And
you can feel those that energy in the
air in town. It's just there's a depression
happening right now,
and and, it's hard. And nobody has a
nobody has the
the, you know, the magic answer of how
we're gonna get through this. You know, this
is a very much a day to day
fight. And,
you know, everybody's doing the best they can,
but it just going back to the, you
know,
like, social media and stuff, being able to
communicate so freely,
you know, across the county, across the state,
across the country,
with with other people that are going through
it and, just, you know, trying trying to
to find the positive outlet to this.
Isn't the the the Internet such a double
sided sword. Right? Because it it helps you
stay connected with the other farms and your
friends. It helps you get, you know, education
on how to do this or that or
wire this or that or whatever.
But, also, it's put,
the regenerative oh, and you mentioned none of
you guys have MBAs.
I I have yet to smoke great weed
from a company that's run by MBAs. You
know? And so we don't we don't necessarily
want that attribute in you. We want you
to be more connected to the land.
But,
shoot. Where was I going with that?
Oh, yeah. And and so the other side
of it, though, is that,
it isn't like having to do your own
marketing and running social media, like like, a
a new challenge where you can't just be
a farmer anymore.
You need to be having your, you know,
your your five posts a week, and you
not need to, like, try to not lose
your profile. It's like it's like it's like,
damn. Can I just, like, go back to
growing my plant?
Right. I mean, I don't have a regimented
format on how to run the social media.
I I I keep it very organic,
but you're you're correct as far as, like,
general marketing,
sales,
you know,
all of the legalities. I mean, there's we
have constant mitigation happening between all the agencies.
You're juggling
so much and to do any one of
those jobs correctly,
with compliance or whatever, that's a full time
job. And,
so something has to suffer. And it and
that's a balance. Right? It's like, don't let
the product quality suffer, but you can't let
other things slip either. And so we're juggling
all these things at one time and it's
it's,
I mean, it's a circus. It's a circus.
It really is a circus, but, we're learning
a lot, you know. I mean, we're it's
trial by fire and,
I would say that the amount of education
I've gotten since legalization has just blown my
mind.
You know,
there's
what's really, I would say disappointing is for
the most part,
there's a big lack of moral compass when
it comes to the corporate mentality.
And that's sad to see.
You know, I I definitely miss the days
of of dirt roads and handshakes. And,
are you still having fun?
Sometimes. Yeah. And sometimes, to be honest. It
sounds like it's so it sounds like it's
so much harder than it's ever been.
Ever. Ever. Ever.
We are we we lose more money
every year,
to
the whole process than, you know, I'd ever
lost during raids or busts back in the
day, and this is an annual debt now.
Mhmm.
You know, we've all watched our property equity
collapse.
We're watching our friends move away. Our mountains
are becoming quiet again because there's just nobody
left up here.
There's a lot going on. You know, the
price points are really tough. You know, it's
we're we're competing against, you know,
big corporate
ag that, is only geared on, you know,
trying to get out those 200 pounds
But the quality sucks. You know, it's all
chemicals, you know, flash dried and Tastes like
Styrofoam.
Yeah. You got it. And then that's consumer
awareness. At some point, they got to get
burned out on that. I mean, it's just,
you know, you can only drink so much
Bud Light before you want, like, a Sierra
Nevada or something. It's just like that's what
we're hoping. You know, if you
we really compare ourselves be maybe it's because
it's kinda regional, but, you know, to the
craft wine industry and being close to Napa
and Sonoma and, you know,
and their terroir and their micro climates and
their craft. And,
you know, we just don't have that craft
value
association yet. There's not a separation of markets
for price points. So we're still competing with
the combined to be market, but we're not
commodity.
And
we don't put out the volume that the
commodity guys do. Mhmm. But we gotta compete
at their price points, which is extremely hard
because logistics of living, like you said, I'm,
you know, I'm in the middle of nowhere
out here.
Trucking costs, shipping costs, just everything going to
town. I mean, I'm I'm literally an hour
and a half away from my post office.
You know, so everything out here is harder,
tougher, more expensive.
And I wouldn't trade it for the world.
I love it. I love where I'm at.
And
I'm currently
in a life cycle of trying
to backtrack to find the happiness,
the joy in this industry, and a lot
of it is like doing things like this.
Compassionate care, that's that's a positive. You know,
it's we things like when you when you
can hand somebody a a joint, they smoke
it and they smile and they're happy with
it and they give you a positive response,
that
that's where it's at. You know, when you're
dealing with, like,
bulk middlemen that their whole job is just
to try to nitpick everything that's wrong with
whatever you got going on so they can
get it cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, like,
that's just soul draining.
Sales have never been my favorite.
And so when you ask, you know, there's
there's so much passion for what we do.
This has been my life's work,
and
I'm going through that process right now of
of
how do I maybe downsize and find the
joy in what we're doing so I can
bring back that creative process. Because, you know,
being creative in this industry,
it comes at a cost also because you
have to sacrifice so much of the square
footage of your farm, so much of your
time to, you know, these mystery strains and
you're trying to come up with something new.
Maybe it's gonna hit, maybe it's not. So
you might be wasting a lot of your
time and energy to try to, you know,
find something that works for very few people.
So it it the whole thing is a
balance. Mhmm. And there's there's some there's so
much to the dynamics of it all. And
every farm has their own issues, but there's
kind of a common theme that we're all
going through.
Right on. Alright. So let's go ahead,
and, take a little break, and we'll we'll
also, change your positioning a little bit with,
with the wind.
So, dear listener, we're gonna take this short
break and be right back. You are listening
to Shaping Fire, and my guest today is
legacy cannabis
cultivator,
Fish poop brand fertilizer is an all natural
OMRI certified fish poop concentrate with nothing added.
Real fish poop is extraordinarily
complex.
Not only are you adding the nitrogen, phosphorus,
and potassium your plants need to build mass,
transport nutrients, and enhance flavor,
but fish waste is also packed with probiotics
and micronutrients.
When you add fish poop to your irrigation
water, you are adding fertilizer in a form
that strengthens the soil food web in your
garden.
Because plants are limited by the absence of
any essential micronutrient,
these trace nutrients are the difference between having
a decent garden and having a garden that
makes you feel really proud of your efforts.
Fish poop is a naturally complete solution that
fills in the cracks in your fertilizer program
to ensure that you offer your garden a
broad base of nutrients.
Not all fish poop is created equally.
Most products with added fish waste don't reveal
their sources or lab results.
Fish poop brand Fish poop, however,
generates their own fish waste as a byproduct
of their organic aquaponics
cannabis farm where they raise ornamental koi and
tilapia.
You are even invited to tour their farm
in person or on their YouTube channel to
look for yourself.
This sort of transparency
is wildly rare in the fertilizer market. The
folks behind Fish Poop are also lifelong medical
cannabis producers who have deep connections in the
community,
donate more product than they sell, and support
cannabis prisoners, veteran, and patient collectives and charities.
To get your bottle of Pure Fish Poop,
go to fishpoop.com
or search for Fish Poop on Amazon or
walmart.com.
And to see their entire line of cannabis
products, go to ounceofhope.com.
That's fish poop brand fish poop.
This message is for folks who grow cannabis.
I'm talking to home growers, patients and commercial
growers too. I'm probably talking to you. When
you plan out your next growing cycle, be
sure to check out Humboldt CSI seeds at
humboldtcsi.com.
Caleb Inspecta and his family have lived in
Humboldt County for over a hundred years. For
the last forty years, three generations of his
family have cultivated extraordinary sense of MIA cannabis
in Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity Counties.
Because of his lineage and the hard earned
experience that comes from growing up smoking and
sifting large populations of cannabis plants in Northern
California,
the seeds you'll cop from CSI will be
winning genetics
based on long time heavy hitters and updated
and resifted to bring out new and exotic
traits and better yields.
Go ahead and ask around. Caleb, also known
as Inspecta and Pirates of the Emerald Triangle
is a breeder's breeder. He reaches way back
and works with significant strains,
recreating them in new and interesting ways that
you'll love as a toker and a grower
as well as offering you some surprises that
will delight serious seed traders and cultivators.
Humboldt CSI goes a further step and selfs
all these chemovars so you know all the
seeds will be female. These are not experimental
feminized seeds. Humboldt CSI releases some of the
best female seeds available anywhere and it will
show in your garden.
Folks grew quite a bit of CSI Humboldt
Gen X last year here on Vashon Island
and everyone was pleased.
The patients had beautiful female plants and didn't
have to cull half of their garden as
males.
The folks growing for the fun of getting
high grew colorful flowers with exceptional bag appeal
and great highs.
And breeders had seven out of seven females
in a pack which gave them a lot
of phenotypic choices.
Take a moment right now and visit humboldtcsi.com.
You'll find an up to date menu of
both feminized and regular lines along with photos
and descriptions. That's humboldtcsi.com.
Descriptions. That's humboldtcsi.com.
You've heard me talk about the award winning
cannabis seeds that come from the analytical breeding
program of Seth and Eric Crawford who founded
Oregon CBD Seeds. In fact, Seth was a
guest on Shaping Fire in 2020
to talk about triploid genetics.
Seth and Eric are now releasing high THC
seeds for home growers and farms as Grow
the Revolution
seeds at gtrseeds.com.
Their high THC seeds are extraordinary
in that they will start to flower at
sixteen and a half hours of daylight instead
of the typical fourteen and a half hours
of daylight.
That means in most regions,
your plants will start to flower outdoors in
the July
instead of the August,
which means these photoperiod plants finish in September
and not October,
totally upending the photoperiod seed market.
Seth and Eric took their prized early flowering
CBG line and bred it to some of
the most desired verified genetics out there, including
sourdiesel,
triangle cush, wedding cake, chemdogs, Skittles and others.
These crosses all express powerful photoperiod terpene profiles
and THC
giving you a great high.
GTR Seeds has a new THCV line with
plants like Double Durban and Gigantor
that boast one to one THC to THC
v. And people want that THC v.
GTR seeds are very consistent,
true growing inbred f ones from stabilized
inbred parent lines.
These seeds are nearly homogeneous and the plants
should all grow the same. There is only
one phenotype in every pack, available as diploids
and triploids.
Seth and Eric's company is still family owned,
patient and employee centric, and partially powered by
their two acres of solar panels.
Everyone can purchase these seeds and the entire
catalog of Oregon CBD seeds at gtrseeds.com.
Go to gtrseeds.com
today and choose something revolutionary
for your next indoor or outdoor run.
Welcome back. You are listening to Shaping Fire
and I am your host, Shango Los. My
guest today is legacy cannabis cultivator, Nick Erickson
of Full Moon Farms.
Okay. I think we've got the wind and
the connection
taken care of. So let's get let's dive
into the cultivation side of Full Moon Farms.
So, Nick, you know, one of the reasons
that I was originally attracted to Full Moon
Farms is because, you know, you're very, clear
that you guys are terpene chasers and not
THC chasers.
And, you know, we talk about that so
much on shaping fire that that if you
have a high THC and crappy terpenes, you're
gonna have a really unremarkable
cannabis experience. But even if your THC is
lower but you've got a full terpene profile,
it really sculpts the experience you're gonna have,
and you're gonna have more of that connection
and joy
that you're smoking cannabis for in the first
place. And and I know that you have
designed
and your entire process at full moon
for the terpenes. So so tell us a
bit about that, about, you know, the the
the supremacy that it terpenes hold on the
farm.
I mean, you you just nailed it when
you said experience.
We want you to
smoke something without knowing what the name is,
what the profile is supposed to be, what
the THC percentage is,
and
have a positive
experience from it. You know, if you're seeking
a specific effect, if you want something that's,
like,
energetic and focused and uplifting and you can
function through the day, we wanna be able
to match that to you. You know,
people are individuals,
and this plant is an individual. And there's
so many different dynamics to this plant just
like there is with people. And one, you
know, one blanket strain's not gonna work for
every person like they and and we see
this in dispensaries, unfortunately. You know, they're trying
to push the highest THC profile,
flower at you. And
it's just one it's not, you know, one
size fits all. And,
you know, for us, you know, we've always
played around with genetics and pollen chucking, but
we're not, you know, you know, supreme breeders
by any means. But we're lucky enough to
know some really, really quality breeders,
that we, you know, hunt for.
And they are able to give us back
unicorn cuts of something maybe that works really
specific to our microclimate that they're not gonna
necessarily didn't have the attributes attributes that they
wanna,
pursue for seed stock, for production, for sales,
that type of thing.
So we come across
really, really amazing flowers.
And it's it's, again, very specific to the
microclimates. And right now we're running three different
microclimates,
and it's finding out what
genetic does what at what's what spot. That
way we can bring out the best of
that flare that flower, the highest, you know,
flavor profile possible,
and and kinda match that to the consumer.
But it it all starts out with genetics.
100%.
You know, going
okay. So you said you said you're going
in these three different spots. So is what
you're saying that you actually the farm, if
you will, you know, it's full moon farm.
And so you're saying you have three different
locations
with different,
like, bioregion
weather.
And so you you are growing
power of that particular environment. Absolutely.
We have a and
it's amazing even what two miles will do
for you apart as far as microclimates.
But we have one farm that is our
most biodiverse farm. It's in native soil.
It's got
it's
about 28 miles from the ocean
at 3,000 feet elevation,
south facing.
It stays typically 10 to 15 degrees cooler
than the location I'm at right now.
You get a little more of that coastal
influence. Sometimes the fog may rise up into
that at the end of the gardens at
that level.
Two miles away from that, we have what
we call the cusp property, and it's the
cusp line 32 miles in
from inland influence. And there's a a real
long predominant ridge that runs down the county.
And
one side is the inland heat influence, drier,
more arid, and then you got the humidity
and the cooler temperatures from the other side.
So it just kind of goes back and
forth all summer long.
You'll get that coastal influence one day and
it'll be scorching hot the next. And the
terpene profiles that come out of that location
versus two miles closer to the ocean are
completely different. We can run the exact same
genetics
and take them to the lab, and you'll
have underlying terpenes that become predominant terpenes at
the other location. So the plants respond
very, very,
aggressively to the climates they're in. And,
you know, there's little nuances. And, I mean,
this is it's kind of above where the
market's at right now, but you can see
it on paper, so the science is there.
But the nuances of the flavor profiles and
the diversity of terpenes and the the little
tweaks it gives you to your experience,
that's hopefully gonna
be marketable
down the line. And hopefully, that's gonna be
recognized by the connoisseur. I mean, we we
Well, I I'm your target market for that,
dude, because, like, I'm miss I'm hearing you
describe, like, same plant grown two different places.
Like, that I wanna do a flight of
that. Right? I wanna do a flight of
the same plant grown at your three different
properties.
Like, that sounds freaking awesome to me. But
as we both know, and it's so astonishing
that this is true,
that that that sun grown
sells at a discount
to indoor, which is just flabbergasting
for me. Right?
Because, you know, I understand how the indoor
weed can look like a centerfold and be
super sexy in all the colors.
But, you know, the science is there that,
you know, all day long, the the outdoor
sunshine profile will be bigger and badder than
what you get inside, but it definitely doesn't
look the same and it's definitely gonna have
more more leaves. But, you know, when I'm
down near you and I'm trying to buy
flower,
you know, they should have a regenerative
section in the store and, you know, they're
not they're not usually. And then when they
tell me that the price is lower than
some kind of, you know, shock
because it's not as respected, I'm like, well,
shit. Give me one of everything that you
sell. I'll take that discount. But but it
doesn't it it's the market is out of
the market's out of touch with the actual
value.
Yes. And also
the reach of market. Like if somebody like
you is that's what you're looking for, that
like you said, most stores don't carry a
regenerative or, you know, sun grown or sometimes
the sun grown that they're promoting is actually
a corporate farm. It's just, you know,
down in Ventura or something that's just, you
know, 60 acres of outdoor. And they're calling
it a family sun growing farm because there's
a lot of culture piggybacking happening right now.
You really got to kind of research what
you're after. But,
but, you know, you nailed it with the
indoor being a higher price point.
And it's looks only looks sell. It's, you
know, it sells itself. Now, that's not going
to, you know, connoisseurs know.
There's some amazing there's some amazing indoor out
there for sure. I've I've, you know, organic
soil grown indoor. Absolutely. Yeah.
But,
you know, just to that point,
about, like, four or five years ago,
I was joined with a bunch of other
farms from Southern Humboldt, and, there was a
study going on in Columbia University,
by their,
PhD chemist, doctor Colin Knuckles. And what he
was doing was taking
the same genetics,
looking and doing complete profiles on them,
that were grown in the sun, grown under
a greenhouse,
and grown indoor.
And
some of his data that's been coming back
has shown that sun grown has almost a
100%
more of the same terpenes
that that genetic does indoor.
And so it just spikes off the charts.
And then something else he's finding is in
long term long term storage, as long as
your parameters of your curing and your storage
stays the same, you know, keeping your humidity
and your temperatures and everything
at the optimum level and and keeping, you
know, that bug leaf on it.
What he's seeing is that indoor oxidizes quicker,
the terpene profiles fall off indoor quicker in
storage.
And,
and some of this some of the cultivars
that he was looking at, it showed that,
their peak expressions were actually at about the
two year mark, about the twenty four month
mark of storage. That's crazy. The slow yeah.
The slow off gassing of of moisture and
and,
and the chlorophylls. And it just it was
just a slow, steady process. And it's kind
of like, you know, tequila. I think tequila
is, like, twenty eight years, and then it
starts to go down. Like, a twenty eight
year tequila is gonna treat you a lot
better than a 50 year old tequila. It
starts to go downhill. So there's these bell
curves that happen
with with proper curing and storage. And and
to be honest, you know, a lot of
people, that's where things fall apart. They can
grow amazing weed and then they either dry
it wrong, cure it wrong,
or store it wrong, and then stuff starts
to go downhill.
And so
this, you know and and he gets really
in-depth with
with more than just terpenes and THC. And,
but what he was what he was showing
was that, yes, I mean, scientifically, we can
prove that sun grown
is
better for you. It's, you know, it's it's
gonna taste better. It's gonna deliver a better
effect than that same cultivar growing indoor.
And, you know, I I don't think either
of us wanna,
say that we're taking a side on the
sun grown versus indoor debate, like, in total.
Right? Because it really depends on which strain
by which grower in which environment. You know?
Like like, you know,
indoor soil
can be fabulous,
but
my indoor
hydro from your neighbor,
like, doing it poorly
is not gonna be the same as the
hydro that some crazy
microbe,
you know, loving person who's developed their own
thing is gonna do you know, the point
the point is that you you gotta you
gotta compare the flower
in specific,
comparing indoor, outdoor,
hydro, soil. Like, it's you know, we can
talk about attributes, but you it really needs
to be this this flower
or this flower on any particular day. Kinda
like these contests, right, where where everybody competes
and it's like, it really depends on the
the flower that and and the judges and,
you know, it's just it's variable from day
to day. Right?
All of that said,
we believe
that in when grown properly,
we prefer
the wider terpene profiles
of of sun grown. And I don't think
the indoor and the outdoor people need to
be
like like like we don't have to have
animosity.
We're all just trying to grow the best
with the resources we have. I grow a
lot of indoor now because I live in
the Pacific Northwest and the cool stuff that
you can grow where you are, I can't
finish here. Right? So now I need to
grow some indoor.
But my shorter North Pacific Northwest strains, I
can grow those outdoors and those are fantastic
all day long.
And it's it's I think that it's when
people over simplify
that discussion that all of us who love
cannabis get into trouble.
You know, you're you just nailed that point
also, as far as
regional. Like, there's a lot of places that,
you know, the humidity and stuff throughout the
summers are too high, so they can't grow,
sun grown.
You're going to mold out, you know, it's
it's come harvest. So there's a lot of
regions in The United States that need to
grow indoor and there's a quality way to
do that and there's an organic way to
do that. And I 100% agree with you
on, you know, that's there's a need for
quality indoor flower out there.
You know, hopefully,
you know, the federal veil will drop
and we can access
all these other markets with sun grown that
want it,
you know, because it's it is very hard
to to access,
you know, the sun grown markets just here
in California. If you could if you could
do direct mail to all the nerds across
The United States, you would kill.
It would be so good. But it's it's
like you you got the you have a
specialty product that everyone will like, but it
takes a specialty buyer who understands
the value.
And those people are spread around and may
not live, like, drivable distance
dispensary where I can buy your stuff. Like
like,
I've I've, you know, I've enjoyed smoking your
stuff, but I've never seen it in a
store when I've traveled to California, you know,
and I've looked for it.
Right.
You know, it's we have some pretty strong
retail partners, but it's specific chains,
and it's ones that are actually kinda seeing
the value
because
we are having some sell through finally.
But to be honest, you know, that that
organic
craft
market that we need to access, a lot
of those people don't go to dispensaries at
all. They would rather have it delivered to
them. And there's there's big issues with with
the profitability of of delivery services in California
because
of their taxation crossing county lines. It's like
a double taxation thing. But,
anyway, so it's you know,
if they are gonna drive their Range Rover
down to Whole Foods and buy a $5,
you know, organic avocado,
they don't want to go into the city
and wait in line to have a 20
year old try to sell them some 34
percent THC, you know, just
bland, whatever, because that's what they're they're supposed
to be doing. They wanna they wanna be
at home. They want access to come to
them. You know, they
they jump online, order know what they're getting,
and they'll pay that craft premium or at
least, you know, something that's above commodity to
have it brought to them. And we need
that. We we really need that to survive
this.
And so the market's there. It's just accessing
them. But if we could, you know, get
the federal veil down and you could say,
okay. It's not just San Francisco and LA
now. Now it's Detroit, you know, Minneapolis, Boston.
And and the people in those markets,
that want what we do,
you know, it would put a heartbeat back
in this county.
Yeah. I would love to see that. I
wish I wish I had I mean, I've
got hope. Right? But I wish I had
an expectation
that that was,
just around the corner, but it doesn't it
doesn't feel like that. And so farms like
yours have gotta just, like, keep stuff
so tight
waiting for some oxygen.
Yep.
And, I mean, it's dwindling quick. It's it
really is. There's there's so few farms left.
And,
you know, we're doing everything we can. And
it's, you know, a lot of people are
just picking up second jobs again,
downsizing,
following for a season, seeing how things go.
But there's also a lot of exodus. There's
people moving to other states
finding, you know, work in in markets where
housing's cheaper and that type of thing. California
is a really expensive state to live in.
Mhmm. And Humboldt County is an isolated county.
We're three hours from anything.
So everything we do here is expensive. Everything's
trucked in or shipped in.
So so let's let's,
let's make a big assumption for a moment
and and assume that everything everything works out.
So looking
looking forward, I know that you're, you know,
you're a pretty visionary guy, and you are
excited about
your property. And and you've got,
you know, another generation,
you know, coming up behind you through your
kids. And, like like, what do you like
like, assuming that the market evolves in a
way that
that that good value can be, you know,
come to your
flowers, what are you looking forward,
to
to to continuing
growing forward? You know, like, I assume that
there are some in house strains that you
wanna continue and, you know, I I don't
I don't wanna suggest what excites you, but
I know that for me, even in my
own garden, I'm already excited for
two seasons from now because I have long
term projects. Right? What what are some of
your long term projects that you're excited about?
As far as genetics go, you know, we
always get
surprised from some of the breeders we work
with each year. So so some of those
things that we look forward to kinda come
out of,
you know, springtime
pop ups when, you know, we get some
stuff given to us. We've done some in
house breeding
that we're we're stoked on. We always like
to carry the legacy genetics.
I've got a neighbor up here that
bowed out of the game, but he archives
heirloom vegetables and cannabis seeds, and he's got
stuff going back into the eighties.
And he is he's got a catalog of
stuff that's just amazing. And so when the
market dictates it, that's where I'm excited to
kind of go old school again because a
lot of the bag appeal from some of
those old school strange, you know, you know,
train wreck crosses and those type of things.
It's,
it's it's not
it's not at on par with what's selling
right now on the mass markets. And so
I would love to go back to, like,
what the roots of Humboldt County
were,
and, you know, some of those Highland indicas
and stuff and and just really,
really bring back some some history,
you know, and sell history,
a taste of yesterday.
That excites me.
Or or, you know, maybe doing some crosses
with a bit of history and something that's
that's hot right now.
You know, that's that's where my heart lies.
But that's a personal thing. You know, I
got to I got to respect the the
the voice of the market. And, you know,
this year we grew like 32 different genetics.
Holy smokes. Yeah. We leave a lot of
money on the table because we're growing stuff
that is hard to grow, that are low
yielders. Maybe they're mold prone,
you know, maybe they're they only market to,
you know, five or 10% of our total
sales.
And so there's you know, we we do
that. We have that diversity for the people.
We understand that. Plug some of these? Because,
like, you know, part partly, we wanna hear
your stories. Right? But I also want people
to go out and and buy your jars
at the dispensary. Right? So why don't we
take a second? Tell tell us about some
of your,
your commonly available
strains
that people get excited about just so people
know what we're talking about when they go
and and look for your stuff.
Sure. So so we're co partnered with one
of my, neighboring farms out here.
His name's Scott Vacherlin. He has a Humboldt
Family Farms brand. He's a COBRA. It's we're
co branded with him.
It will be the the the label will
say Humble Family Farms grown by Full Moon
Farms.
And we do a lot of fun projects
together.
He's on on pace with the same ethos
as we are. And,
right now, you know, like, the the grapealicious,
the super sage,
northern berry,
you know, peanut butter breath. You know, some
some of them are a little more mainstream
so people will recognize them. Mhmm. Some old
school stuff like the original Gorilla Glue.
We have,
High Tide,
which was an in house.
We have some some super sour d cross
with super silver haze. So it's Oh, that's
nice. You know, hay hazes aren't real mainstream.
You know, they've they've kind of been pushed
to the side and passed on. But,
you know, it delivers an amazing high. One
of my personal favorites, and it's one of
the hardest ones to grow, it's late season.
You have to, you know, give it an
extra month of attention. It's a low yielder,
mold prone. It's but it's it's a phenomenal
smoke,
is the sour lemon
mac. And it.
Wow. I mean, that one that one is
just insane.
Key lime jack, some Jack Herrera crosses.
You know, it's, you know, like I said,
we grew like 32 different flavors and I
haven't even smoked them all yet.
You know, I'm probably halfway, to be honest.
But but we do this for the people
because we understand there's diversity out there. And
I don't think a lot of the corporate
guys are doing that. They're just looking at
the top 10 most popular
on Leafly or whatever, and and that's what
they're going with. And what's so funny too
is that they're looking at that and then
they're growing it like crap. So it doesn't
taste like it's supposed to taste anyway. Right?
It's like, would you would you like high
testing maybe
Styrofoam tasting schlock weed with a cool name?
Well, I mean, even in house, like, I've
seen it. I've tried to cut corners in
the past, and it always bites you in
the ass. There's there's are certain things you've
got to put eyes on those plants. If
you you know, I'm out patrolling the gardens
every day. You know, you're looking for issues,
ground rodents, whatever,
chewing on this, maybe a deficiency, something,
you know.
And so you're constantly having to
be site specific daily. And if you're growing
60 acres,
corn road plants, that's that's a real hard
thing to do. And they're just they're expecting,
you know, X amount of yield per acre.
It's, you know, we call it Excel sheet
farming.
And and that's what you're going to get.
You know, if if if that's
if you're buying commodity, expect commodity experience.
But if you want something unique, you know,
you got to focus on these sun growing
farms. And and, honestly, like you said, the
the the our price points at retail are
actually cheaper.
You know, I've seen I've seen 60 to
$75
eights of indoor
that were grown commercially.
And I think, you know, we have, like,
you know, our $40
quarters of premium, and that's a retail value.
That's not to us, but that's, you know,
$40 retail value or pricing
for a quarter of of,
you
know, our hand picked stuff, you know, because
everything is hand touched, hand sorted. You know,
it's,
Hand trimmed,
grown at the right parcel,
you know, everything.
And and timing, and we do small batch
releases. So, you know, when we get the
order from HFF, well, you know, we'll trim
up fifteen, twenty pounds and get it to
market. And it's fresh and the terpenes are
sharp and the sell through is fast and
nothing's lagging sitting on shelves. And,
you know, you're not getting that oxidation. And
it's you know, I've
every every,
dispensary I've been in,
I'm just amazed
how much stuff has kinda went south on
the shelves that they haven't taken down yet.
Mhmm.
You know, hearing you describe it, like, you're
describing a perfect product to me. And I
understand. I am not the general market. Right?
But if the general market knew,
they would feel the same way. And it's
it's it's crazy how much of the survival
of the
American cannabis heartland
depends solely on education of the consumer. And
so that's what we're all doing. You know?
You're doing that when you market and when
you talk to poke. I'm doing that with
people on on on, you know, the Shaping
Fire program. I do that when I'm out,
you know, talking at conventions. All we're trying
to do is to get people to, you
know, open up their experience beyond the Budweisers.
Sure.
And there's a lot better experience out there
for the same price points, if not at
value right now. Mhmm.
So, you know, they can definitely sample some
really good sun grown,
and probably save some money. It's it's just
that cheap right now. We're we're hoping that
that price point's got turns around a little
bit. I understand California's got a taxation problem.
You know? Yeah. It's
it's a lot easier to go to the
streets,
you know, and and money's tight all across
the state right now. But it's a lot
easier to go to the streets and and
go to an old plug that you trust
and skip the whole taxation process, you know.
And so we're we're trying to we're doing
everything we can to educate,
you know, get out
to events, you know, put faces to the
product, talk to the consumers one on one,
get around all the middlemen,
and,
you know, try to make an impact however
we can.
Wow. Alright. So so let's let's empower people
to actually find your flower.
Where can people look to find,
your flower?
So in California, our main retail partners Embark.
We work with Spark.
There's an there's numerous smaller individual stores,
flower company,
and they do delivery.
And, you know, those are statewide chains, you
know, flower companies in San Francisco, but Embark
and Spark are they're statewide.
And, you know,
and if it's a retail
partner that hasn't started carrying us yet, you
know, we are onboarded with Navis, which is
kind of like a bulk wholesaler
that deals
direct to retail.
So anybody in the state can carry us.
You know, so getting
the message out to them, you know, to
shop us from from NAB is is is
big also.
But yeah. So I mean, if you can
find it and Embark is everywhere. I mean,
that's, you know, Fresno, LA. You know, they're
all over the place.
So that that's our main retail partners right
now.
So, you know, people will be listening to
this show for years into the future because
the shaping fire episodes are evergreen. Right? So
so if if if somebody wants
to,
know where you are
when they hear this episode for the first
time,
is it better for them to go to
your to a website or to your Instagram
at full moon farm seven zero seven? Where's
the best place to keep up with you
as things evolve? Because we know they're gonna
evolve.
Sure. I mean, if they want if they
wanna see what we're up to and just
kinda catch our lifestyle
and what we're doing on the daily, you
know, full moon farm seven zero seven, absolutely,
on Instagram.
Humblefamilyfarms.com,
you know, as far as sales and products
that are coming up,
we don't we don't promote anything as far
as sales on on social media because we
don't wanna be taken down. Yeah. But, you
know, humblefamilyfarms.com,
absolutely.
Flower company,
they they host all of our products on
their their menus. So if you wanna see,
like, what's available
and where,
I would definitely go to HFF,
and and check out what they have.
But, you know, I'm I answer,
pretty much everything I can,
personally
from the Instagram, and I've had some some
really great conversations and some real real proper
questions from
the consumers, which
is, you know, uplifting to me because you're
you you you know that something's clicking and
people are maybe getting burned out on what
they're what they're seeing in other in other
areas. And
again, you know, you're just you're fighting one
step at a time. It's just every every
day just push forward. And, you know, one
more one more person that's educated, even if
not buying our products, if they're just focusing
on sun growing in general, like, we're not
just promoting us. We're promoting our neighbors too.
Like, it's Well, that's the beautiful beauty of
the coop of the Humboldt Family Farms. Right?
It's like it's like you've all banded together
so that you can do the things that
you do the best and then have some
of that distribution and outreach handled for you
so you can spend your time with the
plants, which is what we want you to
do as the farmer.
Right.
I you know, it's really akin to kinda
like walking into, like, a beer cave or
something, you know, if you like microbrews. You
know, it's just you're overwhelmed with with, you
know, quality brands right there. But, you know,
that's how it is in the Emerald Triangle
and Humboldt County. You know, you're just overwhelmed
with quality.
You know, I can I can go down
the road and a friend will reach in
his glove compartment box and just hand me
a bag of something he's got on that
just blows me away, you know? And it's
just everywhere you go, people really know what
they're doing. And if you're still in the
game at this point, after all the attrition
that's happened,
you better know what you're doing because you
have to have a quality product. You you
you can't survive without it.
Right on. Well,
let's wrap up with this, Nick. You know,
you and I have talked a lot about
the heart of of, you know,
American cannabis culture in Northern California
and
how times have changed over the years from,
you know, the the the the days of
your youth when,
enforcement and risk was high, but there was
a lot of joy in it and the
flower was really good and, you know, you
know, just the the arc of you growing
up and now, you know, having a license
and and trying to provide the same experience
to people now
that that that you and yours had during
the seventies and eighties and nineties before the
kind of the face of cannabis commoditization
happened.
You know, what is
what is it? What is what is what
is the plea? What is the message
that that you like to send to people
who are newish to cannabis or haven't really
thought about,
outdoor?
What is it that you sell them to
encourage them to to bring them in to
try your flower
once so they know what it's like?
You know, I think everything from our past,
you know,
that generational knowledge, that's just been our foundation.
You know, going forward, you know, we have
to adapt.
So,
you know, it's also listening to them. It's
not just trying to pitch something to them
and sell them on something. We just want
to
offer them the opportunity to have variety
and quality.
And we understand that, you know,
that
they are gonna have asks of their farmer,
their flower. So, you know, that's also, you
know, just even soak that question in them
is, like, what do they really want from
the flower? Are they happy with what they're
getting? Are they are they happy going to
the store and spending $80 and taking that
jar of whatever home? And at the end
of it, are they do they feel good
about it? You know, did it make them
feel good?
Or is there something better out there? You
know, should I should I try something different?
Should I go a different avenue?
You know, and if they and, you know,
it's it's a very instantaneous
society right now. Everybody wants things now. Now.
Now. But, you know, if they take the
time to,
you know, look up their their brands, look
up the farms, kind of get the backstory,
which, you know, all I know a lot
of the small craft farms up here have
that
their their history online.
You know, take that time to do that,
you know, and
and and I I I always, you know,
the the culture of just sitting down and
taking a moment to grind your own flour,
to roll that joint, that ritual
of sharing the moment with somebody, you
know, that I feel like that's kinda getting
lost a little bit. Prerolls seem to be
selling so quickly right now, and it's like,
just take the time to grab some flour,
grind it up, smell it, examine it, you
know, really appreciate it for what it is.
Take the dry hit on that joint and
share it with somebody. Get outside and just
have have a moment. And,
you know, we would love to be the
flower that's there. And if it's not us,
you know, some other sun growing farm, you
know, please, you know, it's just it's just
that it's that,
mindset of of going back to the roots
of it all because
Sun Grown Farms, these these legacy guys, you
know, built this industry. They were fighting the
good fight when it wasn't legal to, when
it wasn't accepted socially accepted, you know. And,
they're still here trying to hang on. And,
you know, I'll tell you what, those those
corporate guys, they they don't care about you.
They care about the bottom line. They got
investors that they gotta, you know, own up
to first. You know, we're not we're not
venture capitalist funded.
So we're here for the people, and we're
on the same team. And we came out
of this, you know, decades ago to do
this for you now, and we're still here.
And there's a very few of us left,
and we would we would love to,
you know,
get that message out. Hell, yeah.
Well, Nick, thank you so much for sharing
your your stories and your good spirit. And,
and, you know, and, honestly, your your knowledge
since that you experienced all of this firsthand.
You know, we appreciate what you're doing. And
those of us who already are singing the
song of regenerative appreciate that you're still giving
it your best shot. And, of course, we're
wishing you your best luck to make it
through these these dry days,
to where more people can access your flower.
And and just thank you for coming and
spending your time with me on shaping fire.
You know, I have been a fan
of your farm for years now,
and,
I feel like I have been able to
kinda, like, really dig into something I personally
love. This show has definitely been a,
a favorite of mine. Right? Because this is
this is why I started doing the podcast
in the first place to really to really
give warmth to this plant that we love
so much. So thank you so much, man.
I really appreciate you and and you joining
me on Shaping Fire.
Man, thank you for giving a voice to
the industry and and doing it from a
proper place. You know? I I I love
where you're coming from. So,
I'm glad that I mean, you said you've
been doing this for a decade, so you're
you're doing something right. And, definitely, I I
hope this is here in, you know, ten
more years, and you're still doing this. Awesome,
dude. Thank you very much. Much. So dear
listener, if you want to, keep up on,
Full Moon Farms,
I highly recommend that you follow their really
enjoyable,
Instagram page at full moon farms seven zero
seven.
And, I also encourage you if you are
in California or if you're gonna be stopping
through, on vacation
to stop at,
one of their dispensaries and pick up one
of their flavors. And and, you know it's
it's mostly at Embark
but you can always find out where their
products are specifically
at the cooperative website at humboldtfamilyfarms.com.
You can find more episodes of the shaping
fire podcast and subscribe to the show at
shapingfire.com
and wherever you get your podcasts.
If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate
it if you would leave a positive review
of the podcast wherever you download.
Your review will help others find the show
so they can enjoy it too. On the
Shaping Fire website, you can also subscribe to
the newsletter for insights into the latest cannabis
news, exclusive videos, and giveaways.
On the Shaping Fire website, you will also
find transcripts of today's podcast as well. Be
sure to follow on Instagram for all original
content not found on the podcast.
That's at shaping fire and at shango lows
on Instagram.
Be sure to check out the Shaping Fire
YouTube channel for exclusive interviews, farm tours, and
cannabis lectures.
Does your company wanna reach our national audience
of cannabis enthusiasts?
Email hotspot@shapingfire.com
to find out how. Thanks for listening to
Shaping Fire. I've been your host, Shango Los.