Ugh — I missed the joke in my own hedline. Sorry to resend!
At first it was errant cows. Now, residents of rural Sterling, Connecticut say they have a big beef with stray pigs that are tearing up fields and lawns because a newcomer hasn’t properly fenced them in.
As I wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal, the animals of Radical Roots Farm have wreaked havoc, causing tens of thousands of dollars in damages, emotional distress and lost sleep, according to dozens of citations and a lawsuit filed by neighbors. Owners Ryan and Alycia Salvas have said they practice regenerative farming and are being unfairly dragged through the mud.
Neighbors say the pig pickle was brewing for three years before court papers were served this February, alleging cows devoured a hay field and pigs ravaged lawns. State and federal regulators launched investigations. A man named Kermit founded the “Sterling CT Pig Patrol” Facebook group.
“There is frustration all around,” said First Selectman Lincoln Cooper, Sterling’s top elected official.
Beyond a neighborly spat, the kerfuffle reflects an unraveling of rural order. For centuries, Sterling’s farmers worked out problems without much fuss.
The town didn’t have a zoning code until 2009, and big decisions still happen at an old-school-style annual meeting, where residents vote directly. The damage and official impotence especially sting, locals said, as more farms vanish and Sterling slides closer to becoming just another exurb of Providence, about a 45-minute drive east.
THE QUESTION: Who is Sterling’s most famous son? (All you need to do to find the answer is click the link and read the whole article.)
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: Washington Roebling was intimately involved in the design of the Brooklyn Bridge, though his late father, August, was the true designer. And since Washington got ‘the bends’ and was basically incapacitated for much of the construction, the day-to-day management fell to his wife, Emily. RPI last month featured an AI-powered Emily Warren Roebling as its graduation speaker. She was granted a posthumous degree.