They're machines on legs, as dumb and servile as they are vital to our well-being, and they perform, day after day. The capacity to protest is not in their nature. A farmer's life is not more glamorous or more prone to protest. She helps her husband around the farm on weekends. Norman Menard one day hopes to be one of the Branons' partners.
Independence has a lot to do with it.
So does prosperity. This is not a bad time to be a dairy farmer in Vermont, the price of milk being at or close to all-time highs. As always, the demise of the family farm has been exaggerated. Only the struggle of it hasn't. My boots got a new polish, my clothes a new scent.