Rural Life

Growing up in rural Vermont, I was profoundly impacted by my surroundings. I spent much of my childhood in the pine forests that surrounded my childhood home, and to this day I feel more comfortable in the woods than I do anywhere else. I grew up in a socio-politically liberal bubble, but as I got older I began to notice the painful contradictions prevalent in our society. Centuries ago, Vermont was settled as farmland. By the 1700’s nearly everybody in the state lived on farmland, and over time the main source of income in the state became dairy farming. Today less than one percent of Vermonters are able to pay their bills this way.

The barns still stand where they were built, foundations crumbling. Abandoned by time and industry. Some still house cows and bales of rustling hay, but most have become memorials to the history of our land. Built by hand and once essential to survival, they now tell new stories.