We've done some polling about Vermont's sense of itself.
We asked a question on a poll, a statewide poll sometime back, What animal represents Vermont? And naturally, the cow. The cow was the animal that came out, you know, dogs were down there a bit but it was far and away the cow. And we asked people just about their sense of Vermont and the role of agriculture in Vermont.
And people see, even people in Burlington, see agriculture as part of Vermont's character and the dairy farms and not just the economy because when it comes down to it, it is a significant part of our economy but its not as large as it looms in our sense of ourselves, our statewide sense of ourselves.
We did ask some other questions, what word, you know, think about Vermont what word comes to mind? I was surprised actually how many people know the word 'bucolic' but you know that was it; beauty, nature, uh it was about outdoors. It wasn't about, um it wasn't a lot about the people, it wasn't about the economy, there wasn't anything about our politics, the Democrats, but it was outdoors, it was the lake, it was the mountains, it was green, beauty. I think that that's probably indicative of most Vermonters sense of themselves too is that, you know, despite our harsh winters, or maybe even during our harsh winters, Vermonters are outdoors. here we are outdoors, right? Rain threatening and everything and this is where we want to be.