(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.
