As part of a larger Occupational Folklife Project on “Grass-Roots Agriculture in Vermont,” Bruce Hennessey and Beth Whiting, owners of Maple Wind Farm in Huntington, Vermont, talk with folklorist Andy Kolovos about moving to Vermont in 1999 to become farmers; how their small business expanded into a diversified produce and livestock operation employing 18 workers; and how they are trying to move towards more humane and ecologically friendly farming.

Natalie Ameral, a port sampler in the large fishing port of New Beford, Massachusetts, talks with fieldworker Madeleine Hall-Arber about her specialized job collecting and analyzing the species, sizes and genders of fish harvested by the port’s fishing fleet. She reports her findings to the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which uses her results to inform their regulatory and environmental decisions. One of the first women to work serve as a port sampler, she was interviewed for the Occupational Folklife Project “Working the Port of New Bedford.”

Master taxidermist Sonny Amato, who has been operating his own taxidermy business in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for over 50 years, talks about learning and plying his trade with folklorist Doug Manger, who interviewed him for the Occupational Folklife Project “Baton Rouge, Small Businesses and Trades.”