The Holden Beach island vacations of childhood are still there, if you know where to look.
Island Time
What a gift, those great shifting sandbars — a 325-mile-long string of them, clustered up and down the Carolina coast, looming so large in the history of our state and in our lives. The bridges and ferries, the wild dunes and crashing waves, the beach houses and fish dinners. Year after year, we return to the islands.
The Transplants
A community farm in Chapel Hill grows more than okra, bitter melons, and Thai chilies. New lives spring from these red-clay rows.
Hog Wild in Rockingham County
On this Rockingham County farm — past the barn and beyond the pasture — a herd of pigs roots and runs in the forest. Far from feral, these animals are being raised for restaurants and grills. But until then, they — and the couple who runs the sustainable farm — are living their best lives.
The Kids Are All Right
The most popular club at some North Carolina high schools is nearly a century old, but it’s as relevant as ever. Energized and optimistic, members of the Future Farmers of America are shaping the state’s agricultural path forward — not just in fields, but in labs and offices, too.
Gathering Wool & Wisdom
On a typical sheep, one year of fleece growth will yield three sweaters. But there are precious few shearers to tend all of the flocks in North Carolina. For the last traveling shearers, an age-old trade has become a kind of modern artistry.
The Cowman of Caswell County
A trained engineer with a love of farming found his calling in rolling green hills and a herd of white, French cows.
Grit & Gumption at the Madison County Championship Rodeo
Eight seconds aboard a bucking bronco? Only the boldest riders would dare try it. At the longest-running rodeo in North Carolina, cowboy culture hangs on.
Three Lines, One Life
The tobacco fields and church pews of an eastern North Carolina childhood taught an acclaimed haiku poet how to see, feel, and hear the landscape — one syllable at a time.
