Spring Hill woman offers farm life just around the corner

SPRING HILL- Turning the corner onto Deb Cougar’s property reveals not a world of paved driveways and screened-in pools, but one of crowing roosters, furry rabbits, yapping Chihuahuas and even snorting potbelly pigs.

Along Barclay Avenue, past the Oaks subdivision but just before the luxurious gated homes Cougar, 56, couldn’t control her delight Wednesday morning as two 65-pound pigs and four piglets, covered in hair and dirt, scurried around her feet scrounging up as many morsels of corn they could find.

“I’m getting built around but it’s still my little heaven,” she said.

That heaven is called NightStar Farm where Cougar spends her days collecting eggs, cleaning rabbit cages and playing with her three potbelly pigs Toby, 5, Daisy, 3, and Buttercup, 8 months, who sleeps in the house when the weather is too cold and acts more like a dog than an 85-pound pig.

“She’s just so cool!” She comes when you call her name,” said Cougar, who bought the four-acre property 29 years ago.

Selling fresh farm eggs for organic eaters, Netherland Dwarf rabbits for local 4H groups and miniature potbelly pigs for unusual pet lovers, NightStar Farm offers plenty in the unconventional department.

“They make very good pets. Most people that buy them put them in the house,” she said. “It’s just plain fun to have them. They have no fleas, no ticks. If you’ve got allergies, you can have a pig.”

But don’t forget about the 20 rabbits, 10 doves, four roosters, 15 hens, five dogs and two cats that call NightStar Farm home.

“All I ever wanted was a farm,” said Cougar, who grew up on a farm with her father in Massachusetts. “I grew up listening to his farm stories so I had to have one.”

Since moving from St. Petersburg, Cougar has worked odd jobs to support her “little heaven” and her 21-year-old daughter Melissa, including selling makeup for Avon, cashiering at Walmart and working as a horse dealer.

But Cougar dropped everything five years ago when her dream of owning a farm became a reality.

Melissa became involved in the local 4H group and told her mother she wanted a pig for a pet. The rest is history.

“She got tired of it and I took it over. It all started from there,” she said.

When Cougar isn’t tending to the farm, she works as a freelance Web page and graphics designer, but 75 percent of her income comes from NightStar.

“It’s the computer and the farm all in one. It’s my dream,” she said. “Since we’ve gone into this little recession here, it’s slowed down. As far as I can do it and as long as I can do it I will.”

For more information, contact Cougar at 352-596-1276 or visit www.nightstarfarm.webs.com.

Reporter Hayley Mathis can be reached at 352-544-5225 or [email protected].