Pick of the Crop – Babes in the Woods……Happy Sausage

Image from the Babes in the Wood website

They say you should name your business something obvious to what you do. Bill Jones did just that with his free wandering hogs in the woods in Dillwyn, VA. Of course, he did dress it up a bit by using Babes as the subjects. Babes in the Woods, has been in business for 6 years. This is one of stories where the day job suddenly moves all of its operations to India. Seeing as you are currently living in Birmingham, (England, not Bema), India does not seem all that appealing. Amherst, Virginia, however is pastoral and rolling and home to Bill Jones’s American wife’s new position as a professor at Sweet Briar College over there in the valley.

So here they come and a 76 acre farm becomes home. Bill had been put off “the other white meat” because it had developed such a bland, flavorless character. Now though, as us converts are learning, clean pork is more reddish, moister and has a bit of a coarser texture and actually has characteristics of flavor. If you really notice, factory farmed meat has become an exercise in chewing, but pure flavor has changed over the years.

I urge everyone to find that extra dollar or 2 to try an item for your own taste comparisons. Coupled with no indescribable supplements going into your system, you will see the benefits. But it is the flavor that will get you. Bill started with his pigs, which he raises slowly, truly in the woods grazing on natural fodder. His first pork chops came in year 2 and he found them to be quite delicious, so he carried on.

Bill points out that the factory farm for pigs uses statistics like 30 pigs per 100 square feet. Babes allows 3 pigs per acre. He is all about proper husbandry, not all about the money. There is respect for the life, each day, for these pigs. The pigs share very nicely. There is one acre in the middle for the Jones’s’ and the other 75 are for the 140 of them. We have all been extended an invitation to see the farm. Bill will set that up for you.

Back in the day, Bill created credit card software as a computer programmer. It doesn’t sound like he has any inkling to go back to straining his eyesight at a computer. Even though it is hot, hard work, being a purveyor of clean meat is his passion. He has a very nice menu at the website with options all the way from jowls to whole pig on the hoof (for those autumn pig roasts perhaps)? This company works at 3 different markets; Richmond and Charlottesville on Saturday and Wednesday at the Souther on the James.

I like to know what makes these successful entrepreneurs tick. Bill’s response was to be persistent, believe in your product, and become an expert at personal communication. I have not yet met many introverts at the market.

Check out his tidy white freezer next time you are at the Farmer’s Market……see you Wednesday!

Souther of the James runs on Wednesdays 3 PM – 8 PM at 4910 Forest Hill Ave (23225). Your list of vendors.

Previous Picks of the Crop

Pick of the Crop is written by Trish Morrison.
Originally from Illinois where she was pioneering with Food Co-ops and Farmer’s Markets in the Chicago suburbs, Trish now lives in the neighborhood near Westover Hills Elementary School. A city dweller by week, weekends she travels to Lunenburg County working on an agricultural venture with her son. She enjoys the blend of art, agriculture, music and muse, you can find at a Farmers’ Market and hopes it comes through in her interview style of writing.