Photo Credit: Michelle Kyhn
Not long ago, Michelle Kyhn’s family faced a dilemma plaguing many dairy farmers in Wisconsin: tanking milk prices. As Kyhn’s father neared retirement, her brother, Jon Lundgren, who’s in his 30s, was reluctant to take over the family’s dairy farm operations due to the financial risk.
Meanwhile, Kyhn, a marathon runner, had heard about cannabidiol (CBD) and used it as a remedy for pain and inflammation. She and her husband David started researching hemp, and in 2017—when former Gov. Scott Walker had signed into law a hemp pilot research program in Wisconsin—Kyhn reached out to her brother about the possibility of farming hemp. That move eventually led to Euthymic Health (7406 W. Layton Ave.), the CBD shop the Kyhns opened in December.
The Kyhns and Lundgren attended hemp conferences and took steps toward growing hemp on their family’s farm property in Sauk County. “It was a scramble to find seed last year, because many places were already sold out, so we bought plants from a Colorado company that also does their own processing. We really liked how they ran things,” she said. “Some of the product we have here is actually their product with our private labeling on them. They have high quality tinctures that tastes better than most stuff out there.”
Euthymic Health’s CBD tinctures come in isolate (pure CBD extract from the plant) and full spectrum (which contains the terpenes, cannabinoids, flavonoids and fatty acids found in hemp). They carry CBD flower sourced from plants grown indoors on the family’s property. Kyhn said there was a learning curve involved in producing hemp outdoors. They started small and tried a variety that was actually meant more for southern latitudes and didn’t flower as scheduled. “We knew the flowering was off, because there’s still wild hemp around our property that was grown there prior to World War II and that started flowering earlier,” she recalled.
Kyhn’s family ended up closing their dairy farm operations, but Lundgren, who lives near the farm, will grow hemp again this season on five acres of that land. The Kyhns own the Layton Avenue building housing Euthymic Health, which allowed them to open the store with little risk. Euthymic Health also has a muscle and joint balm and pet products. The shop’s Tune Up line is designed with specific dosages for athletes that want to maintain general daily wellness. All of Euthymic Health’s products are third-party tested, and the results are available online. The store also carries Colorado-based Whole Made body massage oil, soap and lip balm and CBD Living gummies. They will soon be adding CBD water to their offerings.
Because they are fully integrated as farmers and processors, Euthymic Health’s owner-operators plan to add more products. They offer small-scale private labeling and sell small amounts of CBD extract to crafters that make personal care products. They also sell vape cartridges, but Kyhn emphasized those are cash only due to rules set by their credit card processor. She said advertising a CBD store via social media has also been challenging. Kyhn recently had an issue with Facebook; the social media giant recently took down Euthymic Health’s page without warning, she said, and she had to appeal twice to get it back up. “They don’t have any specific rules, and they don’t really tell you what you’ve done wrong,” she frowned.
Yet she’s optimistic that CBD is opening the door to cannabis acceptance generally, because it provides a great alternative for people who want effective natural wellness. The store’s comfortable ambiance draws younger people as well as older folk who had never tried cannabis products but are curious about how CBD may be able to help them.
For more information, visit euthymichealth.com.
