Independent Dairyman. I think independent. I don't care if six people tell me what they

got to do. If I want to do something different, I'm going to try it. And a lot of them have worked. I get up and eat something and go to the

barn and do chores and then whatever happens. And it keeps you anxious for the next hour.

That's Forest Foster.

He's a farmer in Harpwick, Vermont.

An organic dairy farm, 70 cows total, and about 40 milking at any given time.

The Fosters are one of those old families around here.

There's the Fosters and the Broshoes and the Mollers.

Recently I made a show called Finn and the Bell,

and Finn as a teenager, pretty new to the area.

He always wished he could be part of one of those old families.

And I'm pretty sure Finn would have loved Forest Foster.

I spent an afternoon following Forest around, around the barn, his sugar shack, we took a long

ride on his tractor out past his deer camp. He took me to a place where he cut

cedar and hemlock boughs for deer in the winter and dispatches his old animals

to feed the bear and the deer and the coyotes and the ravens.

Forest would rather trade services than exchange money.

He'll give you meat if you can't afford it,

and he'll expect you to do some chores in exchange.

I guess what I love about Forest Foster is that he's always practical and he's

always generous and these things are always the same thing. I asked him what it was

like to be from an old family that everyone knows.

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