Sonnewald Natural Foods

Leap Into Good Health Sale at Sonnewald Natural Foods! Today, February 28 – Saturday, March 3. Come in and check out the $5 sale on supplements, books and more. Sale tables are located in the Supplement Department. Be sure to check out our Coupons & Specials for additional savings throughout the store.

A WGAL film team visited Sonnewald Friday evening. They were creating a segment on Dr. Oz and his effects on people’s buying patterns. If you missed it on the 11:00 news, you can see it now…

On October 29, 2011 Pennsylvania DEP released the revised Manure Management Manual. The purpose of the Manual and accompanying supplements is to provide guidelines that comply with DEP regulations concerning animal manures and agricultural process wastewaters.

Who the guidelines pertain to:
All farms that generate or use manure, regardless of the size of farm, including farms that:
1. Pasture livestock or poultry, or
2. Maintain an Animal Concentration Area, or
3. Apply manure to their crop fields

Upcoming Manure Management Information Meetings
Topics include: Conservation Plan Regulations, Review of Manure Management Manual, Options for plan development assistance, Conservation District’s role in implementation of regulations.
No fee or registration required. Presented by YCCD Ag Staff.

Three dates and locations to chose from:
- Tues. February 28 at Airville Fire Hall, 7 pm – 9 pm
- Thurs. March 8 at Spring Grove Boro Mun. Office, 7 pm – 9 pm
- Tues. March 13 at Dover Fire Hall Community Room, 7 pm – 9 pm

Upcoming Manure Management Plan Development Workshops
This free workshop is to assist you to develop your own manure management plan. Workshops will be presented by John Rowehl, Penn State Cooperative Extension with the assistance of the District Ag Staff.
Snacks & drinks will be provided, lunch will be on your own. Space is limited, registration required, please call (717) 840?7408 to register.

Three dates and locations to chose from:
- Wed. March 7 at Airville Fire Hall, 10 am – 3 pm
- Wed. March 14 at Spring Grove Boro Mun. Office, 10 am – 3 pm
- Tues. March 20 at Dover Fire Hall Community Room, 10 am – 3 pm

View flyer

“We have a dire emergency here in York County PA, near Harrisburg. This is a farm who welcomed educational non-profits. The grandfather that lives here is on oxygen support, a WWII Vet and retired lifetime railroad union member.

Please help—TEACH-INS START TONIGHT (Bram from NY will be speaking tonight (Feb. 21) on marcellus issue…all are welcome to do a teach-in on any social injustice issues)—YOU ARE WELCOME TO STAY OVERNIGHT—EVICTION SCHEDULED FOR 9:00 am TOMORROW (Feb. 22) … Address is 100 SPANGLER ROAD LEWISBERRY PA”

Maria Payan,
Director of Peach Bottom Concerned Citizens Group which promotes socially responsible agriculture
717 456-5800
payans@zoominternet.net

COME ONE, COME ALL!!! OCCUPY SATORI FARM – EVICTION OF WWII VET & UNION MEMBER ON OXYGEN SUPPORT SCHEDULED FOR EARLY WED FEB 22 MORNING – OCCUPY NOW!!! OCCUPY SATORI FARM! 112 ACRES, EVERYONE WELCOME! TEACH-INS WELCOME. BRING TENTS OR SLEEPING BAGS OR YOURSELF, POTLUCK…SAVE OUR PA FAMILY FARMS FROM MORTGAGE FRAUD

Mr. Conklin and his family face imminent eviction from their farm and has never been granted a full and fair hearing.

Documents submitted to the court by the bank have been determined by experts to be fraudulent and inaccurate, so the evidence presented against him in court has been false (see web site satorifarm.org).

Lynn Szymoniak’s expert witness affidavits proving fraudulent foreclosure documents are being used against Satori Farm: http://www.satorifarm.org/documents/2011_Lynn_Szymoniak_Affidavit_for_Satori_Farm_Fraudulent_Foreclosure.pdf

Watch Lynn Szymoniak on 60 Minutes discussing Foreclosure Fraud: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7361572n

Janus Handwriting Experts affidavit proving more fraud and irregularities against Satori Farm http://www.SatoriFarm.org/documents/2009_janus_handwriting.pdf

EMC and other banks involved in this case have engaged in illegal procedures on numerous occasions to force this fraudulent foreclosure.

Mr. Conklin asks only for justice – that he be permitted to present his side of the case and be fairly heard in the court system, or that EMC do the right thing and engage with him in mediation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Conklin family are my neighbors and my friends. They’ve been fighting fraudulent foreclosure on their organic farm for some time now, and we’re at the 11th hour. They are very kind and generous people who have served the community by providing educational opportunities for children, donating significant amounts of fresh produce to local food banks, and providing a home for folks trying to get back on their feet after adversities.

Would you please forward this to EVERYONE YOU CAN THINK OF who might be WILLING TO STAND with us to support this family tomorrow when they are scheduled to be evicted?

Thanks,
Holly

What scientists are beginning to understand about the cause of colony collapse could be a message for all of us.

It’s often said that we have bees to thank for one out of every three bites we take of food. In addition to producing honey, honeybees literally criss-cross the United States, pollinating almonds, oranges, melons, blueberries, pumpkins, apples, and more. And while carrots are a biennial root crop that are harvested long before they flower, all carrots are planted from seed, and honeybees pollinate the carrot flowers that produce the seeds. Other species of bees, both social and solitary bees, pollinate other crops. And the populations of all these species of bees are in decline.

Read the rest of the article…

Please join Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in stopping a bill being considered in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill as it is currently written would
- Eliminate dedicated funding for trails, walking and bicycling;
- Destroy long-term dedicated funding for transit created by the Reagan Administration;
- Do away with the rail-trail eligibility category in the Transportation Enhancements (TE) program;
- Put our children in harm’s way by eliminating the Safe Routes to School program;
- Fail to maximize its job creation potential, since trail, walking and bicycling projects create substantially more jobs per dollar than do highway projects;
- Increase America’s dependence on foreign oil; and
- Contribute to our growing health and obesity crises.
Learn more at RailstoTrails.org
Using the online form, please ask your U.S. representative to vote “no”

Where Do We Go From Here?
By: Edwin Shank February 3, 2012

NOTE: It is very hard for me to write this materialistic, factual, moving-forward email right on the trails of the last which took so much of my heart and spirit. It somehow seems a little like talking in church…breaking the hush of a solemn occasion. But we live in a real world and I know the last message left so many practical questions unanswered. I’ll try to cover some of them here.

What Is The Safety Status Of The Family Cow Raw Milk Today?

This is a very perceptive question because the MD samples that tested positive yesterday are over two weeks old. Those sample results are very important to the PA and MD Department of Health’s on-going epidemiology study, but they are history as far as the present safety status of our raw milk is concerned.

Let me share with you the steps our family took to sort through the fog of last week and this week to double check and re-verify that the current raw milk being produced at The Family Cow is safe and pathogen free This might get a little long…sorry but it feels like 100 years.

First we voluntarily halted all sales. Even though we at this time were working with a lot of unknowns we knew it was best to totally stop sales till we knew more. Next we called our PA certified milk tester and lab technician for assistance. At their direction we pulled three pints of fresh Family Cow raw milk from our store refrigerator, making sure each was from a separate bottling, packed them on ice in a Styrofoam cooler and rushed them via “FedEx Overnight “ to QC Laboratory. (QC Lab is a “PA approved” lab, which means that PDA accepts its testing as valid.) We requested that each of the 3 pints be tested for 4 separate pathogens. The pints were all from the bottling lots immediately following the suspected date of Jan 16th.

When QC labs called at Monday lunch time to confirm that all three of the samples were 100% pathogen free…all 12 totally negative tests including campylobacter jejune!… the whole family and team was ecstatic. There were hugs and high fives all around and some tears. There were even some hugs from customers who happened to be here. (Thank you for those…you know who you are We will never forget you!)

Why the ecstasy?… because these tests are of extreme significance. They accurately, scientifically reflect the present Safety of The Family Cow Raw Milk. They prove that the ‘bad-milk’ incident two weeks ago that we suspected and MD and PA Health are just now verifying, was a once-and-past-happening.

These fresh pints were all filled in three consecutive bottling’s, spread out over a whole week immediately following the ‘bad’ incident but before we knew there had been a ’bad’ incident. They are a perfect double blind study of our family and team’s daily performance. They were completely random, unprepared-for tests. The cows had been fed, and milked all following normal procedures. The bottles had been filled, capped and dated at our filler, and placed into the refrigerator. All of the steps had been done according to our normal protocol. And all this had been done without the slightest hint when we were doing it that these pints would be used as such crucial evidence of our performance.

How Can We Be Sure This Does Not Repeat? What Corrective Steps Have We Taken?

Good question! There are many small adjustments…here are a few of the big ones.

Major Improvement to Our Hot Water System. We have used the down time to make these renovations. Extremely hot water is needed for washing the milk tank, milking system and bottler. We suspect a hot water heater that was making hot water (140-150 degrees) but not super-hot (160-170 degrees) played a part in this. We replaced the older heater with a high tech, computerized “tank-less” system that consistently delivers 180 degree water or hotter if we wish.

A SMART Monitoring System: About the time this all was happening, Agri-Service, the local dairy supply and service company that also installed our new hot water system, was putting the finishing touches on a web based monitoring system for dairy. The timing was perfect…well, actually I wish it would have been a month earlier! This system monitors a whole handful of control points in the milking, cooling and washing process. And yes, one of the critical control points is hot water. If the new water heater loses capacity slowly like our old one did, run out of propane on any other of imaginable problem, the computer of this system will send an email alert to our smart phones instantly. This system is up and running now. Neil, Rodrick and I are beyond impressed! It makes so much sense…fix the problem before it becomes a REAL problem!

We Are Outfitting Our Own Laboratory: Then we will be able to initiate a new test and hold protocol we have long dreamed of. By test and hold, we mean we will test every lot of milk we bottle and hold it till the test show that it is clear to go. This is a major food safety improvement! I’ll explain more later how the new testing protocol differs from what is required by PDA, but let’s just suffice to say that it’s the difference between looking in your rear-view mirror vs. the windshield while driving. My Dad is installing the cabinet today and Neil is purchasing the petri film, incubators and other equipment we will need. We will still use the state approved QC labs for all the official required testing, but this will give us an extremely proactive monitoring edge right here on the farm.

So When Do We Sell Milk Again?

I wish I could tell you, but we don’t have that answer for you at this time.

Wednesday afternoon during two separate consultations with PDA and PDH, we were told that there was nothing that would be illegal about us resuming sales. After a lot of serious discussion among our family, we decided to bring the raw milk back. Based on the renovations that we had made and the fact that we had so many clear pathogen tests even before we made the changes, we felt 100% confident in the decision. Thursday, we sent out announcements and informed our ecstatic customers at drop points and retail stores that we were bringing the raw milk again. We were just getting ready to put a newsletter out to everyone when PDA contacted us and instituted a whole new round of testing.

So this is where we are today. Waiting, selling lots of other foods from our farm and drop points, but the store fridge is empty. PDA says they will have their lab technician’s work over time to get the new testing done ASAP. We are co-operating with them to the best of our ability. We’ll let you know the second we have approval to go again.

Please be patient friends. We will survive. You will survive. The Family Cow Raw Milk will survive and be back even better and safer and healthier than before.

Thanks so much for all your prayers and kind emails. They are exceedingly precious to our family. It makes us value each of your friendship and support more than ever!

All the Best of Food and Blessings and Best of Health to All

Your Farmer ~ Edwin
The Family Cow

On February 9, 2012, the film “Gasland” will be shown at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of York, 925 South George Street, on Thursday, February 9th, at 7 p.m. The showing is free of charge and open to the public. This powerful film addresses the effects of fracking–the hydraulic extraction of natural gas from shale–on our water supply and other aspects of the environment.

Fracking is already happening in Pennsylvania and there are strong pressures to expand it. How shall we advise our legislators and Governor Corbett on this important topic? This film shows a side of the story that has been largely suppressed but is incredibly important. Questions should be directed to Paul Duryea, paul.duryea@yahoo.com.

Visit our Events page for more activities in and around our area.

Yesterday’s Sundays with Sonnewald topic was “The Raw Milk Witch Hunt?” with Maureen Diaz and Willa Lefever. If you missed it, listen to it now…

Have you noticed how quickly the media jumps to the conclusion that widespread illness is caused by drinking raw milk? Sounds like a case of “don’t confuse me with the facts, I’ve already made up my mind”. Join Willa this week on Sundays With Sonnewald for “The Raw Milk Witch Hunt”.

Join us on Sundays from 12:30 – 1:00 pm on WHVR 1280 AM for our weekly radio program, “Sundays with Sonnewald”. Listen to our past programs or download the file to play on your ipod or mp3 player …Suggest a topic for a future show…