Colt Knight: 00:30
Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. I’m your host, Associate Extension Professor and State Livestock Specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. And today is a fun one because we are recording on Hemond Farms at the Buckles and Banners Jackpot Show. And I am joined with Sierra. Hi, Sierra.
Sierra Hemond: 00:51
Hi, Colt.
Brittany Hemond: 00:53
And Brittany. Hello.
Colt Knight: 00:55
And Brittany is the mother figure of the farm, and Sierra is the daughter figure of the farm. And we were gonna have Sierra on because she is an accomplished young lady in the show world, FFA. Do you participate in 4-H at all?
Sierra Hemond: 01:13
Yes. I do.
Colt Knight: 01:13
4-H. She is a really good public speaker and just an all-around character, so we thought she would make a good podcast guest. But we also have her mother, Brittany, here because they have got an outstanding farm operation going on here. You guys do pigs, lambs, beef cattle.
Brittany Hemond: 01:35
Yep.
Colt Knight: 01:35
Chicken. You have chicken. Turkeys. Turkeys, hemp.
Sierra Hemond: 01:40
Yep. Motocross. Motocross.
Colt Knight: 01:43
And you’ve got this—
Sierra Hemond: 01:45
Event, event venue. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 01:47
This is an old 1800s post-and-beam barn that you’ve converted into a really lovely event center.
Brittany Hemond: 01:54
It’s actually been torn down. It was three and a half miles down the road, and we tore it down piece by piece and rebuilt it out here in the field.
Colt Knight: 02:00
And then what else do you got going on here at the farm?
Brittany Hemond: 02:03
You know, a little bit of everything.
Colt Knight: 02:05
I figured you got more going on.
Brittany Hemond: 02:06
Yeah. Well, just mostly this. It keeps us pretty busy between all the events that we do with the motocross. And then we do a lot of hay. We hay a bunch of land around here.
Brittany Hemond: 02:17
So we do a lot out in the fields during the summertime as well. There’s a couple of, like, old dairy farms that aren’t open anymore in town, so we lease the land and hay there, and then work all summer to put away feed to feed our cattle for the winter.
Colt Knight: 02:34
Yeah. And your husband was telling me that there’s quite a family history on this property. Right? How far does it go back?
Brittany Hemond: 02:41
Yeah. So we have a—our, our daughter and our son will be fifth generation here on the farm. My husband’s great-grandfather is the one that originally bought the farm, passed it down to his grandfather, George, and then my father-in-law, Donald. He didn’t farm, per se. He used to own an auto repair shop here.
Brittany Hemond: 02:58
So he did that for a living, and supported Michael and Michael’s farming endeavors and the motocross endeavors. And then there’s Michael, and then we’ll have our kids, Sierra and George, that will hopefully—our goal is to make this place sustainable for them so nobody has to really leave the farm. We try and have enough things going that something’s always paying, and we just kinda go season by season. And it’s good because I think we all have ADHD, and our jobs change with the season. So come fall time, we’re getting ready to process some moose and deer.
Brittany Hemond: 03:29
That’s something else that we do here. We’re a game inspection station. So that’s the next on the docket because we have another month and a half of summer hay and motocross, and we’ll finish up with fair season and then go right into game processing.
Colt Knight: 03:42
Yeah. My family didn’t have any land, so I went into coal mining. So right after I graduated high school, I started working in coal mines and then, you know, got tired of that and went to school. And then that’s how I became an academic, so to speak, was escaping the coal mines.
Sierra Hemond: 04:01
Coal mines. Yeah.
Brittany Hemond: 04:02
I don’t blame you on that one.
Colt Knight: 04:03
Yeah. I wish that I had some family land to inherit. I always wanted to be a, you know, cowboy farmer type deal. So—
Brittany Hemond: 04:10
That’s one thing I, like, watch Legacy Farmer and stuff, and they always talk about it getting past the fourth generation being hard. And, like, with the economy we’re in, like, I can see those challenges, you know, and how by the time our kids have this place, like, I can only imagine—like, we have our struggles trying to keep everything going—what it will be like for them. So hopefully, we’re doing enough things and growing enough and people are enjoying it enough, we’ll be able to sustain it for them.
Colt Knight: 04:37
Mhmm.
Brittany Hemond: 04:38
Or with them.
Colt Knight: 04:40
Sierra, normally, I ask my guests how they got in agriculture, but you were just born—yeah—into this. And you took a liking to showing the livestock?
Sierra Hemond: 04:50
Yeah. So when I—I was, oh jeez. I was—we were—I was, like—
Brittany Hemond: 04:57
Eight or—
Sierra Hemond: 04:57
Nine. Yeah. When we started having pigs at the Fryeburg Fair. And me and my mom, we had pigs there, but we didn’t stay there all week because we had people there helping feed them and stuff because I was still in school. So we went up on Friday and Saturday to watch the pig show, and then I kind of realized, like, I don’t wanna do that. So the next—wait.
Sierra Hemond: 05:16
Was it? Yeah. The next year. The next—next year, 4-H club. I joined a 4-H club. Wait.
Sierra Hemond: 05:20
No. That was—it was 2022 when I realized when I wanted it. Sorry. But—and then I joined a 4-H club. And then the next year at Fryeburg Fair, I—I started showing pigs.
Sierra Hemond: 05:30
And then one of my 4-H leaders brought me to the market steer show. And I watched the market steer show, and I’m like, I want to do that. So then that year, we had a calf who was super friendly. So I just pulled him out of the pasture, halter broke him, worked him, and then I showed him a few times. I showed him at Youth Show, and I market—I marketed him at Fryeburg.
Sierra Hemond: 05:51
And he was definitely, like, what got me into it. And then after, like, while I still had him, at Youth Show in 2024, one day is all heifers at Youth Show. So I had nothing to show. So that kinda made me realize I want a heifer. So then I went, and I found a heifer a week after Youth Show.
Sierra Hemond: 06:10
She was in Florida, but she wasn’t ready yet. So we were able to—I was able to place a down payment on her, and then we drove to Florida in August 2024 and bought this heifer. She’s a little percentage Simmental next to my pasture now. Little cute little pasture mama. And then at Fryeburg, I ended up buying a Shorthorn heifer.
Sierra Hemond: 06:29
So I bought my Shorthorn, and then she also has a calf in the pasture right now. And then in the spring of last year, April 2025, she went down to Florida with my dad, and she was searching Facebook groups for Brahmans because she was the one who loved the Brahman, was—so you’re the one.
Brittany Hemond: 06:51
I’m the reason for the Brahmans.
Sierra Hemond: 06:53
And she likes them. So I—they—they found one, and it fell through. And then I, on the Eastern Brahman Breeders Association website, I called every single person in the state of Florida. None of them had Brahman for sale.
Colt Knight: 07:06
Like 8,000,000 people in Florida.
Sierra Hemond: 07:08
I know. We couldn’t find one in Florida. But—and then the first person I called on the Georgia list had a gray heifer for sale. She was registered. So I said, sure, we’ll take it.
Sierra Hemond: 07:19
We ended up buying it, and I ended up showing her at Youth Show two weeks after I got her. This thing was not halter broken. Crazy, insane, like, jumping, master kicker, like, literally would charge you. But then I tied her up to work with her, and it took me about two to three months to get her fully broken. And in that process of that two to three months, and it was, like, in about May, probably a month after I had her, I tried to take her on a walk and I got kicked in the head—concussion—but meh.
Sierra Hemond: 07:47
So—and that’s how I kinda got the Brahmans. And then those are all the heifers I bought. And then last year at Fryeburg in 2025, I did another Fryeburg market steer. I bought a little Angus steer off one of my 4-H friends, and I raised him. And I marketed him at Fryeburg, ended up pretty good in the sale.
Sierra Hemond: 08:06
And then this year, I did the Cumberland calf scramble, and I’ll—I’ll be auctioning off a Red Angus-Beltie cross at the Cumberland Fair this year.
Colt Knight: 08:13
Very good. So Brittany was actually one of the first people I got to know professionally when I moved to Maine—mhmm—because she was heavily involved with the Pork Producers Association. And I got invited to speak at most of those spring meetings. Hopefully—hopefully, we can see—
Brittany Hemond: 08:30
Some of those again. Maybe this will help us get some traction to get some more participation in the Pork Producers—
Colt Knight: 08:36
And the folks into pigs these days, but most people are just buying feeder pigs, I think, and raising just a handful in their backyard. And it’s really hard to get a hold of those folks.
Brittany Hemond: 08:44
It is very hard.
Colt Knight: 08:45
Mhmm. But as you know, we need a lot of good information out there on genetics and nutrition and breeding.
Brittany Hemond: 08:53
And with the Pork Producers Association, we still go every year. Me and my husband, Michael, will go to the National Pork Board forum and sit on the delegate body to elect the new National Pork Board. And we always learn so much out there. So if there is anybody interested out there, we would love to have you. I’d love to—I used to have a group of people, so we would form, get together just a couple times a year, and we’d make the spring learning day that we had, and grow from there.
Brittany Hemond: 09:23
But a lot of the people were older and now don’t do pigs. So I try and market it to anybody that buys piglets from me. I’m like, join the Pork Producers Association so you can learn all about the things you should do. But it’s hard to find some people sometimes to help with things. But it is—there’s some people who are around that will call and ask questions.
Brittany Hemond: 09:46
And so if there is anybody out there that’s interested, I’d love contact information, and it would be great to put something together again. Even if it’s just like a PQA thing or something, the basics, or we could go deeper into other things, whatever people wanna know.
Colt Knight: 09:58
Well, through my involvement with the National Pork Board, I was—this year, I was elected as the chair of the Swine Education and Outreach Professionals Committee, which is an advisory board—
Sierra Hemond: 10:09
Yep.
Colt Knight: 10:09
—to the Pork Board on education and Extension work. We also have a fall conference every year in October where we bring all the swine educators together and talk about up-to-date, pertinent topics. I get a lot of my information from that conference and working with that board. You know, Maine is not like the rest of the country. We’re kinda isolated from most of the pork industry.
Colt Knight: 10:31
So being able to hear and talk to those folks has been fantastic. I’ve been—and it’s given me the opportunity to collaborate with people. So we actually have a few grants right now with some money that we can do some swine education in the state. We just need to get folks together and pick some locations. So if you have any suggestions and you wanna be a part of this, let us know.
Colt Knight: 10:54
You can email us at the show or you can email me or—or talk to Brittany, and we’ll get those—get those things rolling. Especially have some money to do swine artificial insemination. Yeah. And I got some stuff to do some stuff with the kids right now too. So—
Brittany Hemond: 11:08
And the artificial insemination stuff, like, I think, like, a lot of people are intimidated by it. But I did it for the first time a few years ago, and I’ve had some great success. It’s really hard, like, especially for a pig breeder in this state, to find new genetics. My sows, I try and keep those. Years ago, we were able to get nice-quality sows from Tufts University.
Brittany Hemond: 11:27
So that’s where I was getting all my Yorkshire sows from. But they don’t have that program anymore. So bringing in pigs has been hard. So I’ve been able to, like, find some nice semen from different places across the country and breed in some good Yorkshire genetics. I do use a Berkshire boar to clean up if I don’t get them with AI.
Brittany Hemond: 11:46
But it’s been a good thing to have available if there are people who breed pigs.
Sierra Hemond: 11:50
And that boar is also pretty nice too.
Brittany Hemond: 11:52
He’s—he’s no ordinary boar. From Connecticut. He was pretty close, but sometimes you have to travel.
Colt Knight: 11:58
I had a string of unfortunate FedEx experiences last year with my semen.
Sierra Hemond: 12:03
Yeah. That’s harsh.
Colt Knight: 12:04
And I bought a boar out of Ohio, a Berkshire boar out of Ohio. And he’s been the best one that I’ve had so far. We had four litters this spring, and I didn’t have any farrowing issues. That’s good. Squashing babies.
Brittany Hemond: 12:17
That’s always good.
Colt Knight: 12:18
Yeah. It’s—it’s taken a while to get pigs adapted to our growing system because they’re used to—
Sierra Hemond: 12:24
That Midwestern too.
Brittany Hemond: 12:26
Like, all the pig—the producers that I meet while I’m out at these things, like, they find us so interesting because their mind’s in such a box of, like, grower and feeder barns and, like—
Colt Knight: 12:36
Oh, yeah.
Brittany Hemond: 12:36
So they’re like, you do what with your pigs? Like, you hand shovel out pens?
Sierra Hemond: 12:40
And then, like—and the other thing too is they’re like—my mom’s like, yeah, we have, like, maybe 25 head of sows. They’re like, 2,500? And I was like, no. 25.
Sierra Hemond: 12:50
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 12:51
We had a grant a few years ago to talk to small-scale producers and small-scale swine veterinarians to see what the industry needed for education and materials and stuff. And we went to the—the World Pork Expo.
Brittany Hemond: 13:06
That’s my dream. I haven’t been yet, but I’m going one year.
Colt Knight: 13:10
Worth it. You should go. Yeah. And—and, you know, we were asking—they’re like, how many sows do you got? And just like you said.
Colt Knight: 13:18
And—and when we were asking that question, what is small? Yeah. Because some of those folks, if it’s under 100,000 head, then—
Brittany Hemond: 13:25
It’s small. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 13:26
Yeah. And I think we ended up settling on 10,000 or less.
Brittany Hemond: 13:30
Oh, wow. We’re really small.
Colt Knight: 13:31
We’re micro, so we missed it. Then we got recategorized as niche and not—yeah—not small-scale.
Sierra Hemond: 13:37
That’s the word nowadays.
Colt Knight: 13:38
That—that was the word that—that we ended up getting stuck with. Yeah. So—
Brittany Hemond: 13:41
Yeah. No. They do use that word. Yes. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 13:46
So Sierra, we always, in higher education, we like to promote programs like 4-H and FFA because those kids go on to become leaders. They end up doing better in college. They have better jobs, and I think Sierra is kind of a model for that. Right?
Brittany Hemond: 14:08
Yes. Yes.
Colt Knight: 14:09
And—and so, Sierra, tell us about your—your public speaking experience, because I know you were in some competitions with that.
Sierra Hemond: 14:19
Yeah. So kind of, I’ve always been a very outgoing—like, since I was literally probably five, I’ve been such an outgoing person. Like—she’s not shy at all. I, like, when I was five, I was working the admission gate with my mother and saying, like, “$20, please.” Like, kind of like that.
Sierra Hemond: 14:36
And then kind of 4-H came along. And through 4-H, I did—I got invited to a public—okay. How it works is, with my 4-H group, with my first market steer, Mitch, we had, like, a buyer’s meet-and-greet. And the 4-H Extension educators came out from Oxford County, and I gave them my whole selling spiel, whatever. And they were like, yeah, we’d love to invite you to 4-H public speaking.
Sierra Hemond: 15:00
And so they invited me, and then I did the regional competition. I won that. And then I went on to the state competition where I placed blue ribbon. And then kind of after that, I knew I had to keep doing it. And then a month after that, I started—no.
Sierra Hemond: 15:17
It was, like, right around that same month. I started my FFA chapter. And kind of when I started my FFA chapter, I was picking things to try to compete in at states. And extemporaneous public speaking was one that stuck out to me because you pull a topic out of a hat, you have 30 minutes to prepare a speech on it. So I competed in it at states.
Sierra Hemond: 15:35
Our state competition is very small. We had only four other—three other people and me competing in the competition. And I competed, did my best. And then next thing I know, they’re calling third, not me. Second, not me.
Sierra Hemond: 15:46
And then next thing you know, first—like, I could be first or last. Like, there’s no in between, and I somehow got first, and that was, like—I was over-the-moon excited. Like, that was definitely a super exciting thing. I, unfortunately, didn’t get to go to nationals for that, but one of my other FFA members gets to, and I’m super excited for her and to see how that process is at nationals. That year at states, we ended up—my—I had a livestock judging team.
Sierra Hemond: 16:10
I put together my FFA chapter and then I coached, and we ended up getting high overall livestock judging team at the state level. And we were able to go to nationals last year in Indianapolis and compete, and that was crazy. Like, how competitive some of those teams are there is insane compared to us. Like, we—we came to this wedding barn, actually, and we studied, like, one to—one to two times a week over the summer and tried our best. But we—we placed bra—we placed a bronze placing at nationals.
Sierra Hemond: 16:40
At nationals. And then I got a silver individual medal, which was super exciting because, from my research, I’m the youngest person to ever do that. So—
Colt Knight: 16:49
For our listeners that aren’t real familiar, at nationals, there’s 80,000 FFA kids attending that.
Brittany Hemond: 16:55
Fill Lucas Oil Stadium with kids. It’s a sea of blue jackets. It was—I was blown away.
Colt Knight: 17:02
Not a little accomplishment to place at this. This is a big deal.
Sierra Hemond: 17:06
Like, it’s insane. Like, walking—because kind of our first experience was on Wednesday morning at 8:00 AM, the shopping center opens. Best part of National Convention, I’m not going to lie. She’s a shopper. But you walk—you just walk into that building and everyone’s shoulder to shoulder in blue jackets, just waiting to get into the shopping center. And you’re like, what?
Sierra Hemond: 17:26
This is insane. And kind of that was an insane experience for me. And then I’m also an FFA in the USA reporter. It’s a national FFA reporter program where I have articles pub—I have four articles published on the National FFA website, and I get to work and produce articles about all these different things. I’m actually gonna be one this upcoming year again, which I’m super excited for.
Sierra Hemond: 17:48
And because of that, I was able to get a backstage tour of Lucas Oil Stadium, which was so cool. And we got to see, like, how big—we got to go up to the press boxes, got to go look at everything. And that was—it was just so cool. And then competing, there was, like, almost 200 kids from across the country in that competition. So it was no—no easy competition.
Sierra Hemond: 18:09
We were there from 7:30 AM till 4:00 PM, and it was con—it was just go, go, go.
Brittany Hemond: 18:14
And they couldn’t talk, and they didn’t have their cell phones. So that—
Colt Knight: 18:19
The cell phone thing is why I brought up the public speaking. And I’ve noticed this teaching at the college level. I can’t even get my freshman students to answer questions when you ask them in class. And the first thing I do is I say, good morning, everyone. And I always have to scold the class because no one responds.
Sierra Hemond: 18:38
Good morning back to you.
Colt Knight: 18:39
Yeah. You know, don’t be rude. It’s—you need to acknowledge people when they’re in the room. And—right.
Colt Knight: 18:45
And so I consistently see our 4-H and FFA kids at a college level do so much better in class, grades and participation and—and everything. So I think it’s really beneficial, and—and I’m glad to see that your daughter’s participating in that. When I was your age, my jaws were wired shut with rubber bands because I—
Brittany Hemond: 19:06
Had braces.
Colt Knight: 19:07
Braces to fix my TMJ.
Brittany Hemond: 19:08
She hasn’t quite gotten—I haven’t gotten there.
Sierra Hemond: 19:10
I have to get a lot of teeth pulled before that happens.
Colt Knight: 19:11
You know, when I was a teenager, if I wanted to talk to someone, I had to, you know, make my finger into a hook and dig into my mouth and remove four rubber bands. So as you can imagine, I really didn’t talk a whole lot. And I—I pretty much started communicating just by grunting and staring and shaking my head, which still to this day is—is a problem sometimes. My wife will be like, say words.
Colt Knight: 19:36
Yeah. But—and then when I was in college is when I was exposed to actually public speaking, and I was rough.
Brittany Hemond: 19:43
She’s a way better public speaker than me. I will give her that.
Colt Knight: 19:45
Really rough. So I spent six years in undergraduate and in my master’s degree. They were hammering us on public speaking and being able to do that.
Brittany Hemond: 19:55
Communication is so important.
Colt Knight: 19:57
And—huge deal.
Brittany Hemond: 19:58
I think, like you said, with cell phones, like, everyone just types everything or sends a picture. Like, people don’t talk anymore face-to-face like they used to.
Colt Knight: 20:05
Students typing emojis into papers that were due at the college level. I was like, no. No. This is not cool.
Sierra Hemond: 20:14
They don’t even let us do that in high school. I don’t—
Brittany Hemond: 20:16
Know how they try—try—
Sierra Hemond: 20:17
To get away with that in college.
Colt Knight: 20:18
But—yeah. It was awful.
Sierra Hemond: 20:19
With, like, the public speaking too, a thing is in, like, livestock judging—I’m gonna—I connect everything to livestock judging. It’s live, breathe, and sleep livestock. Like, judging, you have to give reasons to the judge. You have to go stand in front of a judge, and they’re sitting down. You have to stare in their eyes and yell at them, basically. That’s what you do.
Sierra Hemond: 20:38
And you give them why—you give them your reasons why I placed this class. And that is so—like, it’s so intimidating, but I love it. Like, and then after you’re done your reasons, the judge might ask you a question or two. And actually, at National Convention, I, like, chatted with most of the judges. And my—my—my expertise is definitely swine and lambs.
Sierra Hemond: 20:57
I’m not so much cattle—cattle judging. It’s—cattle’s a lot harder because those cows who have so much—who have three inches of hair on them. But, I mean, I love it.
Colt Knight: 21:09
Mhmm. Well, that kinda transitioned into the next point, is the show—yes—that we’re sitting at right now. It got out a little early today, so we’re able to record this podcast. But Sierra kinda took the reins on this thing.
Colt Knight: 21:23
Right?
Brittany Hemond: 21:24
She did. She did. So her and her dad had been conspiring to try and do something like this, and I’m always the brakes, usually, in the household because I get overwhelmed sometimes. So I was like, oh, I don’t know. The pavilion’s not done.
Brittany Hemond: 21:38
And—but this show was exactly the push we needed because we did finish the pavilion this week. And we kind of let her take the reins. She booked the judge. She reached out all on her own, did everything. She got the Showman program on the computer.
Brittany Hemond: 21:52
Banners. It’s all buckled—the banners, ordered the buckles. She ran into roadblocks. The buckle vendor we had at first, she, a month before the show, said, oh, I can’t do the buckles.
Brittany Hemond: 22:01
So she had to get on the phone, call people, and find a buckle person to make the buckles for us so they would be here in time.
Colt Knight: 22:07
When I first started buying buckles, it was super easy. Could tell them what your deadline was, and then they would all just be like, oh, we will make sure that we get them. Now they’re like, six to eight weeks, maybe.
Sierra Hemond: 22:18
So, like, two months. It’s insane. Because, so, the people I use, Ace High Silversmiths, they were great to work with. And he—so my first buckle person, they reached out to me, and I—and I liked her buckles. So I said, yeah, we’ll use you.
Sierra Hemond: 22:30
And then she completely ghosted me. So then it was a month out before the show, and these people had called me after I told her that she could do the buckles. So I called them up, and I’m like, hey, my buckle supplier quit out on me a month before the show. I need 20 buckles.
Sierra Hemond: 22:43
Can you do it? And he’s like, absolutely. So they were great to work with. They got all my buckles done, and they look fantastic. And I was super honored to win one today.
Sierra Hemond: 22:52
Can’t wait to wear it. Kind of—I was—I love them. I’m—I was super happy with how they turned out. And then our banners, great, the backdrop. Everything went so good.
Brittany Hemond: 23:03
Compared, I think, to our first too, like, for her, like, she’s seen us do events here her whole life because that’s what we do every weekend, usually, is an event, whether it be a wedding, a motocross race, whatever we got going on. So this is something new to do. But letting her kind of do it on her own and problem solve, and sometimes dealing with the public’s the hardest part. But she’s done a great job, like, answering phone calls, answering emails, like, all the behind-the-scenes stuff that people don’t see. You show up to show day, but 17 people called this week asking questions.
Brittany Hemond: 23:34
And so—
Sierra Hemond: 23:35
I—I tell my dad because he’s like, why aren’t you working in the barn? I’m like, Dad, I gotta go do office work. He’s like—
Brittany Hemond: 23:41
Back-to-back meetings. And I’m like, yes, back-to-back meetings. But there’s emails and there’s others. So—
Sierra Hemond: 23:46
She’s—she’s—
Brittany Hemond: 23:46
Seeing all—she’s seeing all sides of things, which is good for her. So—
Colt Knight: 23:51
And I wanna get back to you diversifying your farm because I think that’s a really important topic. But, Sierra, tell us how you came about coming up with this jackpot show. And you—you went big too, and you got a big celebrity judge to come out. So how did you go about putting this all together?
Sierra Hemond: 24:09
Kind of back in March, my dad was like, we’re gonna have the pavilion done. I think we should do a livestock show. And I’m like, you are out of your mind. And he’s like, no, we should do it. And he’s like, who could be judge? And I’m like, no, we actually started talking about this in December last year. It’s a lot.
Sierra Hemond: 24:27
It was a long time. So he was like, who could be our judge? So first I reached out to Blake Bloomberg. He’s the coach for Black Hawk College and their junior college national champion team. And he—he judges livestock all the time.
Sierra Hemond: 24:46
He’s gonna judge the North American this year. But then he said he couldn’t do it because there’s too much going on. So then I reached out to Ryan Rash, and I messaged him on Facebook. Couldn’t find any other way to contact him, but he’s always active on Facebook. So I reached out to him, and I’m like, hey.
Sierra Hemond: 25:01
We’re—we wanna have a show here in Maine. Would you come and do it? And he’s like, absolutely. Because the last time he came to Maine was 20, 25 years ago, and it—I think it was, like, I think it was at Fryeburg Fair. Yeah.
Sierra Hemond: 25:13
You said he was—
Brittany Hemond: 25:14
Fresh out of college and he did the—
Sierra Hemond: 25:15
Fryeburg Fair. But that was a very long time ago, and having him up here is—has brought probably more attention to the show, which is a good thing. But kind of—
Brittany Hemond: 25:25
A little marketing strategy she’s learning. Hire some influencers. We do that at the motocross track all the time.
Sierra Hemond: 25:30
So—but kind of, I was able to get him in for our judge. And then at Youth Show this year, I started promoting, and people were like, whoa. Like, where do you come from? Like—mhmm—kinda like that.
Sierra Hemond: 25:43
But that was kind of funny. And then over the summer, I’ve been posting things on social media, like, getting people ready for this and going on, making sure people are putting in their entries and managing the entry platform, and then ordering buckles, banners, making sure I have people here, making sure I have everything I need. Like, it’s—it’s been a lot, but it’s been—I—it’s so worth it. And then kind of that’s one thing I debated basically the whole time I was planning this, is whether or not I’m gonna show at my own show. But I was very lucky to be able to show at my own show, and it was great.
Sierra Hemond: 26:17
And I had such a fun time. But definitely getting to show under Ryan Rash is not an everyday thing, so I had to take advantage of the opportunity. So—
Colt Knight: 26:25
I got pictures.
Sierra Hemond: 26:26
Yes. Yes. Thank you for that. Thank you. I don’t know—
Colt Knight: 26:28
How your daughter talked me into—she made it feel like it was my idea.
Brittany Hemond: 26:33
Uh-huh. She’s really good at that. We always say she could sell ice to an Eskimo. That’s kind of our line with her.
Colt Knight: 26:38
I don’t know if that’s manipulative or just, like, salesmanship.
Brittany Hemond: 26:41
Does it with me all the time. Like, I tell her no, and the next thing I know, I’m, like, doing what I told her no to. I’m like, how did I get here?
Sierra Hemond: 26:47
Or, like, I want something.
Brittany Hemond: 26:48
She’s just like her dad because he’s the same way. Because I said no to the show at first, and here we are. There’s a show. So that’s kind of how it works around here.
Sierra Hemond: 26:55
I’m like, Mom, can I please get this new top? And she’s like, no. And I’m like, well, I can use it for showing. Can wear it for school. I can do this.
Sierra Hemond: 27:02
I can do that.
Brittany Hemond: 27:02
She sells things.
Sierra Hemond: 27:03
And I’m like—and she’s like, fine, just order it. But, yeah. I also was spending money—
Brittany Hemond: 27:08
For all of that too.
Colt Knight: 27:11
So let’s get back to your farm diversification, because you are one of the most diversified farms that I’ve been on here in Maine.
Sierra Hemond: 27:20
A lot—
Colt Knight: 27:21
Of folks have different animals, but you’ve also got events going on as well. Yeah. And you’ve got a beautiful place, so taking advantage of that is—is outstanding. So how did you get into doing events on top of farming?
Brittany Hemond: 27:35
So, yet again, my husband dreams. He—he is such a visual person, and we had the—so he had the motocross track. He started it when he was 15. Next year makes 25 years that we’ve been in business. And so he was like, there’s this barn down the road.
Brittany Hemond: 27:54
It needs to be torn down. He’s like, I think we should rebuild it in the field. He’s like, ’cause we had a concession stand at the time where we sold food when we had events, and he’s like, we can build a good, bigger kitchen off the back. And so it, like, started a project. And at the time, other things we’ve done at the farm, we had some music festivals here.
Brittany Hemond: 28:13
So we had the Great North Music and Arts Festival here. It was a huge event. There was 4,200 people who came that weekend. So that kind of really—like, we never done an event that big. So it kind of opened our eyes to, like, hey, this could be something a little bit more.
Brittany Hemond: 28:28
So because we got the barn enclosed the year of Great North, which was 2016. And then since then, like, a lot of blood, sweat, tears have gone into this place. And we just kind of, every spare dime we have at the end of the month, we find something that we can invest back into the property. And we’ve just kind of built it. And we started small, like, the barn wasn’t even done, like, friends of ours got married here.
Brittany Hemond: 28:56
And then as things have gone, we’ve done some birthday parties, weddings, anniversary parties, and now we have the gorgeous pavilion outside. And we’re, like, thinking now, because we sell a lot of food out of the kitchen, we’re thinking that for—through the fall, we might be open, like, certain days of the week in the evenings for people to just come in and have a cheeseburger or pulled pork sandwich or something from the farm and sit outside, enjoy the view because it’s always beautiful. There’s always a nice breeze up here on the hill. It’s just a great spot.
Colt Knight: 29:27
And you’re gonna be getting into ice cream next.
Brittany Hemond: 29:29
Yeah. I know. That’s—the ice cream machine is on the list.
Sierra Hemond: 29:32
It is. I’ve been trying to convince her because out here during some motocross events where I’m not showing, I run a coffee bar. So I—I—I have an espresso machine, espresso machine, and I actually do pretty good on that. And that’s another one of my projects I do.
Brittany Hemond: 29:47
We—we have a coffee shop idea—yeah—that someday we’re gonna do. We’re just not there yet.
Sierra Hemond: 29:51
But I’m—that’s awesome. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 29:53
I’m always surprised how well ice cream does on farm stands and—and farms and things.
Brittany Hemond: 29:58
Yeah. Yeah. I know. I’m definitely—for sure it’s in the near future.
Sierra Hemond: 30:02
I’m trying to convince her to buy an ice cream—to buy either, like, those big tubs of ice cream I can scoop out or buy me an ice cream machine.
Brittany Hemond: 30:08
I want a soft-serve machine.
Colt Knight: 30:09
Oh, no. You got to have the hard serve.
Brittany Hemond: 30:11
I know. Hard serve—
Colt Knight: 30:12
Is a—
Sierra Hemond: 30:12
Good choice.
Colt Knight: 30:13
The difference is way superior—
Brittany Hemond: 30:14
So, too, soft eventually. We should have built the kitchen a little bigger, is what I’m feeling like, because we need a pizza oven too. We need to get rid of those bathrooms. I know. We need a little—I know.
Colt Knight: 30:24
Always do a lot of things.
Brittany Hemond: 30:26
So, but as—but the one thing that I have enjoyed with the expansion we’ve done and the different things is, like, we dabble our feet in a lot of things, but it’s all kind of happened organically. Like, we do promote things on Facebook and social media, but it’s like people come here and there’s just, like—for, in the motocross world, I’ll use that for example. Like, when you come here, it’s different than other places ’cause you’re, like, on an actual farm. Cows in an open field. There’s cows grazing while you’re here.
Brittany Hemond: 30:57
Like, it’s just—it’s more about the experience when you come here. And that’s kinda how we try and make the farm. Like, when you pull in, like, we try and keep it nice. You pull in, you’re like, wow, look at this, you know? And you just don’t forget that feeling, you know?
Brittany Hemond: 31:10
Because we live here every day and, like, it’s the best place in the world. Like, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. Like, I know how lucky we are, like, and how blessed, and I’m so grateful that we get to live here and work this place. Like, I was a nurse at the hospital for 12 years, and Michael told me for a long time to quit, and I was refusing to because that’s what I went to college for. But, like, for me to be here with my kids and be able to expand our farm and grow, like, our future rather than working for the hospital, you know, like, I loved my work as a nurse, and I still—I’m a damn good nurse still, I always say.
Brittany Hemond: 31:46
My best friend—I was an L&D nurse—my best friend just had a baby, and I got to be with her. So, but it’s just—it is, like, we just want it to keep growing on its own, kind of, and our following is growing. And I want—I don’t want to be too big because I want people to still have that feeling, you know, of when they pull in and they’re like, oh, we’re back at Hemond’s. Like, when we have our big events at the track, like, people say it all the time, we just love this place. Like, it’s just different being out here wide open and the stars at night.
Brittany Hemond: 32:15
That’s another thing. We have camping for some of our events and people camp in the field and sit out here and, like, there’s no lights, so you can see, like, every star. Like, it’s so cool. And the days we had the aurora a few years ago, I got some great pictures of the sky out here, like, with tractors, with all the colors. Like, it’s just—it’s an amazing place, and I really feel, like, lucky that we get to share it with people too.
Brittany Hemond: 32:40
So all these new things we’re doing is just so we can share what we have with other people. So that way they get to enjoy it as well, and it keeps our farm going and hopefully sustainable for our children and our future of our family.
Colt Knight: 32:53
You mentioned something earlier. You said you invest into your farm. And I can’t tell you how many folks that I work with on generational farms that don’t reinvest into their farm. It’s like they’re still running it the way that Grandpa ran it. They haven’t updated facilities, equipment, and then they wonder why the children don’t wanna—right—
Colt Knight: 33:15
Take over the farm. It’s like, well, it’s falling apart. Right. And they can’t afford to fix it. Right.
Colt Knight: 33:21
And so I—I love seeing farms that are—that are progressive like that, and not politically, but—right—but want to—
Brittany Hemond: 33:29
We wanna make it better for the next generation because—
Colt Knight: 33:32
And try new things. Yeah. And it’s because that—that’s—
Brittany Hemond: 33:35
Some of the things work and some don’t. But, you know, that’s business. Like, some idea’s a million-dollar idea. Some, they cost you a million.
Colt Knight: 33:41
Unfortunately, farms are not gonna survive by getting smaller.
Brittany Hemond: 33:44
Right. Right. No.
Sierra Hemond: 33:45
You’re right.
Brittany Hemond: 33:46
And the cost of having a farm is not gonna go down either. Like, so just figuring out what works so you can keep what you have is hard sometimes.
Colt Knight: 33:55
And then one of your other things that you do is hemp. Yep. Which is amazing that you were able to—to get into that business and sustain that because when hemp first was legalized—yeah—I mean, you know, because you were in the—in the business, but how many folks tried to get into the hemp business? And what?
Colt Knight: 34:14
Two percent maybe succeeded?
Brittany Hemond: 34:16
So we actually haven’t grown hemp in a few years because we’ve made enough, like—because when you—we grew for, like, CBD oil. That was the hemp that we grew. So we were able to harvest our products over a couple years. And it’s, like, the raw product. So you extract all that CBD, and it’s, like, a raw product, and it’s shelf-stable.
Brittany Hemond: 34:35
So in the years that we grew, like, because you don’t need that much of it in order to make your products. So in the years that we grew it, we were able to get enough raw product that we haven’t had to grow it in a few years. So we still have everything, and we have some tinctures, salves, and things like that that we make with it.
Colt Knight: 34:54
I can’t tell you how many folks that I worked with. Most of them were, like, retired veterans or retirees that moved to Maine, then they were converting old dairy or beef cattle farms into hemp farms. They put all their money into raising—you know, they tilled up all the hay fields and planted hemp, and then found out they either didn’t have a buyer or they couldn’t make good-quality hemp that was—
Brittany Hemond: 35:16
And to find an extractor too, that was a challenge for us. Like, we didn’t—went to Maine? Yeah, we went to Maine, but Maine didn’t really have the infrastructure it needed to, like, do the full process. That’s what we found. So we were able to find someone.
Brittany Hemond: 35:30
That’s why we kind of stopped because it wasn’t the most profitable thing, and we have some. So I don’t know. That’ll be a decision once we’re out of it, if we grow them. Because we do five acres when we do it to make it worthwhile. So—but it was definitely a fun experience.
Brittany Hemond: 35:46
So cool. Like, and the product, like, we have customers who swear by it. They’ll buy it. And we make, like, a dog tincture with salmon oil. So they’ll give it to their dogs or they take it. I have a couple people who buy it that have seizures, so they take it for their seizures.
Brittany Hemond: 35:59
So—but it was a really cool thing to do, and we definitely learned a lot. And so there’s only so many hours in a day, though. So as we add more things, like, sometimes we take away other things because we’re trying to figure out where to put our time, you know, where we’ll get the most return out of it. So—
Colt Knight: 36:20
Yeah. Well, it’s been great having you on the podcast. Do you have any other things to plug? Or—
Brittany Hemond: 36:28
I don’t know. Unless you want me to talk about anything else. I don’t know. I don’t know. I think everyone, if—if you would like to check out, we have a Facebook.
Brittany Hemond: 36:37
It’s Hemond Farms with an S because there’s a bunch of Hemond farms because we are—my husband’s family is multigenerational in this town, so there’s a couple of dairies too. But you could check out our farm page. The other thing I also love that I like to share with people is my farm photography, because I have a lot of people who follow our farm page just to see my pictures, because I like to sit with my animals and capture who they really are, is always what I say. So—but we put our stuff on there. And our Hemond’s Motocross page also has, like, our events there.
Sierra Hemond: 37:09
So my Hemond Show Stock page, where I post a lot of, like, the stuff about the show and a lot of—if I have animals for sale or something. Yeah. Like—so—
Colt Knight: 37:19
Well, thanks for coming on to the podcast.
Brittany Hemond: 37:21
Thanks for having us. And thank you for coming out to the show and being here to support, and we really, really appreciate it.
Sierra Hemond: 37:26
Yes. We do.
Colt Knight: 37:27
And if our listeners have questions, comments, concerns, or suggested episodes, or they’d like to hear more about, you know, just on-farm type stuff, please send us an email at extension.farmcast@maine.edu.
Brittany Hemond: 37:51
Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.