This is Rumble Strip. I'm Erica Heilman. Today is episode two of season seven of what class are you,

a periodic series that I make for Vermont Public. Today is a conversation with Jules Gilmette.

Jules grew up on their family farm in LaMoyle County, which has been in the family nearly a hundred years.

Since then, Jules has worked as a chef,

a meat cutter, and now they are an electrician. In this episode, we talk about what it means to own

land of tremendous value, but always be struggling to save enough money. Here's Jules. I grew up in French speaking Vermont.

There were a lot of farms in the valley. Folks helped each other. They shared equipment.

You know, everybody was milking cows. I don't know. I was very much, I was in the kingdom.

I was really happy. I was outside all the time. I had so much

freedom and so much pride, like definitely a lot of pride. In living in that beautiful place.

I mean, that place spoiled me forever. Sweeping fields, sun, all the sun, you know,

so much space. I would go out the door and wander off, and sometimes I wouldn't come back

till the sun was setting. But pretty soon it'll be

a hundred years of Gilmets there, but I mean, my grandfather saved his money and bought the farm,

and he didn't bring my grandmother down from Montreal until he had things like paid off and

pretty well set up. So I've always been land rich and we still have

that place long after he's gone. But you know my mom and my dad they were very frugal. They taught us

about cutting coupons and not going for name

brands and saving money. And when I think about folks having more or being wealthy in my community,

I think of the folks that own the lumber mill. I remember I was at their

house. I was friends with one of their kids. And the mom was out somewhere running errands. And it was

me and Lindsay and her dad was home who's my mom's boss

...