That might make the title of an autobiography.

Our bobolinks never had to contend with cattle. Only the occasional deer would come through for the wild strawberries. The field was hayed only once a year (for fifty years) after the bobolinks had fledged. A few years there might be a second cut in late summer if the farmer needed extra hay.

Our acres, along with our neighbors’, used to belong to the farmer until he got tricked by the bank into borrowing money for equipment he did not need and then went belly up. He was at the front of the process whereby family farms were systematically eliminated from the economy. His brothers learned from his example and held on to their acres, while he retreated to acreage whose title was not clear and not attractive to the money men.

His grandson is now an accountant at a bank and still lives in the modest trailer next to the cows. French Canadians are New Hampshire’s exploited minority. The spouse, who’s from Louisiana, found the place familiar. I never got used to the meanness of the majority suburban migrants. Wonder if meanness is a migrant characteristic.