Coon Rock Farm’s Lil’ Piggies – Hillsborough, NC
(Photo by Joshua Carpenter)
"Pigs will eat ANYTHING," said my host Jamie DeMent (a little proudly) about her Farmers’ Hybrid hogs at the 55-acre Coon Rock Farm, a sustainable family farm that provides food to several restaurants in North Carolina’s Research Triangle area.
First, you need to know that Jamie is a captivating storyteller. She peppers her narratives with one-liners that could easily be screenprinted on shirts and sold to college students at neighboring UNC-Chapel Hill. So, I was intently listening to her talk about how they let the pigs root around in the garden before planting any crops(effectively tilling the land), and sort of forgot that I was standing in the middle of a pigsty. All of a sudden I felt something trying to gnaw through my cowboy boots. I let out a (admittedly girlish) shriek and looked down to find a pair of snouts trying to get at my lil’ piggies. I guess they really will eat anything.
I have been to Coon Rock Farm many times….I’m Jamie’s mom! It’s a wonderfully magical place where you can go to renew yourself on a Saturday morning for a real farmer’s market and get the best food around in the process! Thanks for doing this on Jamie and the farm!
I wasn’t a total locavore until Jamie and Richard converted me. Coon Rock’s salad greens, vegetables and herbs are grown naturally and organically in an edible paradise. Their meats are in such demand that Richard has sold the ham Jamie reserved for their dinner party. I’m becoming a seasonal forager tracking down Coon Rock’s offerings at the farmers’ market.
What a wonderful photo! It is so evocative of the story line. I think the photographer has a special touch to capture this so perfectly.
I belong to the Coon Rock Farm CSA and we’ve been buying eggs from them for a couple of months now as well. I was in the grocery the other day and priced checked- not too bad because a dozen organic factory farmed ‘free range’ eggs were priced at $4.19- vs 4 bucks a dozen from CR. And after having visited Coon Rock Farm on the Piedmont Farm tour- I know that these are truly free range- not just chickens w/ a 8 inch by 8 inch patch of grass. They roam all over- through compost pile and around the garden fences. Bugs and weeds beware- they will forage you right up for dinner.
thank you for your good service!i will do the order again.
Damn i hate pigs they are disgusting i can’t really believe that something like this happen in places like this.
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