At a pancake breakfast hosted by the Columbia Land Conservancy in Hudson, New York, on March 22, 2013, music was provided by a soloist and helpers calling themselves The Cattle Drivers. Guitar and banjo accompanied solo or harmonized song with various helpers, some of whom were on the staff of the CLC. The genre of music was not limited to bluegrass, despite the prominence of the banjo, and the spirited picking and strumming. The musicians performed some country and western songs without announcing their names. They also, to an enthusiastic response, performed some popular soft-rock ballads from the 1960s, including several now popular with small children, such as the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They also offered several protest songs, including If I Had a Hammer, by the locally prominent environmental activist Pete Seeger, and Lee Hays. Another unnamed piece mourned the disappearance of family farms. They also invited requests. The lead guitarist carefully avoided overwhelming the appreciative audience with volume. When one of the volunteer singers was unfamiliar with the song, they improvised, and did so very competently. The result was not perfect but unembarrassed and pleasant. There was a mix of fast and slow songs, mostly in the common 4/4 rhythms of rock-and-roll. The bluegrass pieces were in either 2/8 or 6/8 and involved a lot of fast finger work. When the director of the CLC picked up the banjo, everyone paid attention to his picking. The physical space was a very simply decorated high ceilinged room in the 9th-century brick building known as Hudson’s Mansion, formerly used by the Elks Club, and now much renovated. It is just off the main street of the town of Hudson which is the county seat and boasts several hundred antique dealers. The outside of the structure is very handsome and striking, with towers and battlements of brick. The room was very hot, but the attendees seemed pleased to be out of the cold. The smell of pancakes, maple syrup, ham, and sausage filled the air. The Cattle Drivers played on a tiny, barely raised stage. The crowd was made up of supporters of the organization, apparently both from the local small town rural agricultural community as well as from New York City. Some were very fashionable, and some were dressed as though they were going hunting. There were a great many small children there as well, some with parents and others clearly with grandparents. There was a constant movement of people greeting each other table to table, which is one reason that some of the songs’ announcements went unheard. This did not mean that no one was listening to the music, but rather that the Cattle Drivers were not yelling between songs when they shared the titles of the pieces (if they shared the titles at all). Rather, the audience was there for food and companionship. Volunteers shared stories of birds, beavers, and fish sighted. The music was an extra joy, but the main event was getting together. This was explicitly a chance to get volunteers and donors and together and build cohesion around issues of open lands preservation. There were several announcements of honors received by the organization, and ne