Representative Jim Masland doesn't put all his eggs in one basket when it comes to his work in the Vermont State House. Rather, he sells them “for lunch and pocket money.”
The longtime Vermont resident brings his weekly harvest straight from his chicken coop to the desks of his colleagues in the Green Mountain State legislature.
It's a bit of a quirk for a politician, but for Masland it's just business as usual. While nurturing his political career (he served as a selectman in Thetford for 12 years before becoming a legislator nine years ago), Masland also was growing a farm full of vegetables and livestock. Masland started by taking up his grandmother's hobby of vegetable gardening, and a friend handed off a few chickens. “They were more fun than I expected,” he says. “So, one thing leads to another, and I got a bunch of them.”
Roger the rooster and his several dozen hens now allow Masland to make egg deliveries to his colleagues' desks each Tuesday morning. He also hosts an annual turkey roast.
Though farm life seems to complement his political pursuits, Masland doesn't like to draw parallels. “It's certainly not like I slit the throats of my [political] competition,” Masland said in reference to his “least favorite chore” of butchering. However, “if there were one phrase that applied to both my farm and working in the House,” Masland says, “it'd be: Just get it done.”
And he gets a lot done. Masland also works in construction—doing for-profit projects and working with Habitat for Humanity. Masland finds a common framework behind what he pursues.
That work varies from House to farm, and from the town of Thetford to the state of Vermont, but for Masland, it's all part of the human connection he strives for. After all, “it's difficult to develop a relationship with poultry,” Masland says.
