a fourth street zinnia parade.

in zinnia-speak (it is all about the speak !), i have been bugging my friend brian with the sly camera to join me on an escapade to photograph these gush-happy zinna on fourth street. but to no avail ! so despite my camera only doing such justice, i did snap some scenes at the strip.

i believe that the ever-showy annual known as zinnia has a sentimental heart. if you can tell, i've been listening to old she & him songs, before zooey lost her zeal. these blooms will hopefully never be heaps on any floor, or sidewalk.

see flowers every day. be happier then than you'd be without eye scoping them. we all need more pinches of the happy-happy in our lives.

with petals well worth glimpsing, these perking types are very easy to grow, i've noticed. so if you haven't tried them out yet, consider them for next late spring.

( a jokester haiku about this fruity-hued type of bloom )

 apricot prom dress

puffed from 1982--

your slip is showing.

bamboula limited pushes the go green button.

Bamboula Limited pushes the go green button

By Jennifer Hetrick

  

Kutztown’s one-of-a-kind shop, Bamboula Limited, sells a stock of African hand-crafted fair trade home accessories and gifts, many of which are sustainably made in the vein of the now go green era.

Bamboula Limited president and owner Jasperdean Kobes served as a volunteer teacher in Ethiopia with the Peace Corp in the 1960s, always having felt curious about the continent of Africa as a child.

In 1989, Kobes bought Bamboula Limited from its previous owner, an American woman whose French husband wanted to retire to his home country.
 

Until 2000, the company operated out of New York City, but Kobes relocated the storefront to 164 West Walnut Street in Kutztown, as the move made sense due to her husband teaching psychology at Kutztown University.

Kobes explained that the woman who owned Bamboula Limited before her described the name of the company as a Bantu word for celebration, although she has also heard other possibilities for meanings, including an African drum or a big rain.

( These brightly colored toys are crafted out of recycled flip flops 

that wash up along the shore along Kenya's coastal line. )

 Bamboula Limited is geared toward wholesale buyers with its warehouse stock, but Kobes sells to a retail audience as well during the week.

In the early days of running Bamboula Limited, phone connections were not at their best, so Kobes placed her orders by telegram and then fax.

She estimates that she has traveled to Africa 35 to 40 times in the past two decades, visiting the artisans and their families to purchase their traditionally inspired utilitarian goods with the fair trade ethic in mind.

Many of the artisans Kobes buys from have no other means of income, which makes her support especially vital, then transferring the hand of global assistance to those who purchase what she sells at her Kutztown shop.

In her trips to Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Tanzania, and Uganda, Kobes sifts through masses of handmade goods until she finds ones she thinks will best suit the Bamboula style.

( Bamboula Limited's bags and totes are made from straw, sisal 
fiber, or bananafiber as sustainably used material. Recycled glass 
is used in bracelets as beads and in other home accessories. )

“Baskets are a really big category, and it’s because they’re all made out of natural fibers—they’re renewable, eco-friendly fibers,” Kobes said.  “There’s a lot more consciousness on the part of buyers to get products that are made out of sustainable materials.”

( Sisal fiber totes are sustainably constructed, very multi-purpose, 
and support artisansin one of five different African countries, 
 when purchased. Photo courtesy of Bamboula Limited. )

 Some of the sustainably made baskets she carries will be in Martha Stewart Living Magazine’s September issue.

“In Ghana, there's a tradition of making glass beads,” Kobes said. “They're used for jewelry, but we worked with the glassmakers and developed a line home accessories using recycled glass with metal.”

 

 ( Shown above is the process of making recycled glass - the glass comes from bottles, 

broken window panes, etc.  It is put into clay molds that are in the shape of the glass 

pieces being made.  The molds are then put into oven so that the glass pieces in the mold 

fuse together into the desired glass shape. Photos courtesy of Bamboula Limited. )

 "Our overall objective is to sell products that are contemporary and useful in people's homes,” Kobes added.

Ten years ago, Kobes sold many items made out of wood, such as candle holders, trays, and picture frames.

But today, she said Bamboula Limited carries hardly anything wooden, instead transitioning into filling her storefront and warehouse with artisans’ work made out of mostly sustainable and eco-friendly materials.

Handbags and totes are another popular green seller, as the movement to stop using plastic bags is leading to people taking reusable bags grocery shopping, to farmers’ markets, or as to use as purses.

“The green movement is very critical because of problems in the environment,” Kobes concluded. “People are becoming more conscious of not harming the environment by what they’re buying.”
 

( also published in the print and online editions of the kutztown area patriot.)

orange cosmos and the cosmos.

this sky scene is from several weeks ago, above the parking lot of a shoe store and an office supply store in pottstown. but of course, i cropped those buildings out because the sky had enough to say on its own away from human constructions creeping along the ground.

and what a juxtposition.

this is an orange cosmos i planted from seed many months ago. it's the only one that popped up. maybe i didn't sow many of these seeds in the planter. it's hard to remember back then. but my neighbors also grew some from seed, and theirs are quiet boastful on their front porch, so i promised to snapperoo those up sometime because they are well deserving of some camera time.

i hope it's not coincidental that what's beyond our sky and the name of this flower share the same name.

poetry & what keeps the doctor away.

a better perspiring

through sweeps of heat

the apple speaks

in sweat and green, as the student 

of gravity or the pull of clenched fingers

snapping a branch 

back with a pluck.

bending its way at light, singing through
the hardened lace of its stem--

the apple curves 
in the slow and unseen 

choreography of its own thin skin, knitting
a quiet phonetics into the memory 

and feel 
of the wood 
it left behind.

jrh.

raw milk dairy unique to rural berks county.

some notes. i probably should have posted this long ago. i wrote one story about wholesome dairy farms for bctv.org last fall, but the edits to the copy in its online version were ones i found very disappointing, with my voice leeched out of it. so to give it some life in its original form and to throw some education out there, here is my first and intended version of the story.

 ---

Raw milk dairy unique to rural Berks County
By Jennifer Hetrick

Raw milk is making a name for itself in today’s world as an increasingly consumed dairy product valued for its many benefits which are not always evident in the pasteurized, homogenized gallons of milk sold in chain grocery stores.

Berks County became the home of a raw milk dairy in the early months of 2008. In Douglassville, farmer Mark Lopez operates Wholesome Dairy Farms with the help of five employees. The first milking on the farm took place April 15 just two years ago.

Before moving back to Pennsylvania, Lopez ran a veterinary practice for dairy cows in Texas. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003 with his degree in veterinary medicine.

Lopez’ Ayrshire cows and young stock graze on 90 of the farm’s acres, with ten of those acres new to the cows this year, Lopez said.

These Ayrshire cows, a breed from Scotland distinguished for their higher cheese yield, are grass-fed, with the original animals coming from farms in Berks and Montgomery Counties as well Central Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture places strict regulations on raw milk dairies, requiring a license and mandating that such farms have their milk tested bimonthly for bacteria. Raw milk dairy farmers must pay for this independent lab testing out of pocket, Lopez said. Each cow’s health must also be checked annually.

“By law, they allow me 10 coliforms (bacteria) per milliliter in the milk,” Lopez said. “My tests consistently come back with less than one—so none detectable.”

Lopez proudly acknowledged his raw milk’s absent bacteria count, while he said pasteurized milk usually has coliform levels per milliliter in the 100s; but such high levels are widely accepted in mass-produced milk because of the pasteurization process.

As stated in the 2008 PowerPoint Presentation ‘A Campaign for Real Milk’ by the Weston A. Price Foundation, “Milk’s anti-microbial properties have been detailed only recently, but the destruction of protective properties was recognized as early as 1938 in studies showing that raw milk did not support the growth of a wide range of pathogens.”

In accordance with the Price Foundation’s view, Rikki Caroll, who resides in New England and is a prominent figure in cheese making, said on her instructional website, “Unfortunately, one of the downsides to pasteurization is that fresh milk naturally contains healthy bacteria which inhibit the growth of undesirable and dangerous organisms.”

“Without these friendly bacteria, pasteurized milk is actually more susceptible to contamination,” Carroll stated.

“With [most] pasteurized milk, you’re getting milk that has cooked manure in it,” Lopez said. “Everything’s been killed, but it’s still cooked manure.”

“Now, if you have an irresponsible raw milk producer who is unscrupulous and isn’t meticulous, I think that can be dangerous—I’ll be the first to admit that,” Lopez said.

In many states, raw milk production is illegal, which makes Pennsylvania unique in allowing more choices for its residents with milk purchasing options.

Throughout the national health community, a serious resistance exists in supporting the idea of consuming raw milk.

Lopez said that the reason he thinks major health organizations are in opposition to raw milk consumption is because of a lacking safety net. “I do have a safety net—the relationship that I have with my customers.”

“They come in with their families,” Lopez said. “There’s a trust; there’s a relationship that’s established there, and that’s a safety net—what we have together.”

“They [major health entities against raw milk consumption] can have their perspective, but I’m grateful that they allow me to do what I’m doing,” Lopez said.

Lopez noted that since opening his dairy, he has never once heard of any instances of customers becoming sick from drinking his raw milk.

“A healthy cow on a good diet is going to make the highest quality milk,” Lopez said, elaborating that a comfortable cow that is not stressed out, in good overall health, and feels at ease in a clean environment is more likely to milk without difficulty.

The cows are milked twice per day, Lopez said, with the machines connected to them for no more than five minutes per milking.

Beforehand, the cows undergo udder prep. This is a process of cleaning the teats in an iodine-based teat dip which has detergent and skin conditioners in it, Lopez said.

“You want the teat skin to be supple, soft, and smooth,” Lopez said. “If you get overly dried teat skin, you can get flaking, and it’s uncomfortable for the cows.” Of course, cows in distress can lead to complications during the milking process, so comfort is essential.

Lopez uses a milking machine which sits under a regulated air vacuum. The milk travels into a stainless steel pipe and runs by gravity into a bulk tank where it is chilled to approximately 36 degrees Fahrenheit. It remains there until it is containerized and stocked in the milk store’s fridge.

The cows’ udders are then treated once more with the cleansing and moisturizing teat dip.

According to Denise Mullinax, Assistant Director of the California Dairy Quality Assurance Program at  the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis in ‘Evaluating Concentrated Teat Dip,’ “Teat dipping post-milking helps to decrease bacterial invasion of the teat-end as cows return to outside corrals and freestalls.”

“The opponents of raw milk say the safest thing is to get pasteurized milk,” Lopez said. “ It’s a shame that they take that view because I say the safest way to protect yourself from getting a foodborne disease from your milk, if you get your milk from a place where the cows are kept clean and they’re cared for, and they’re milked in a meticulously clean way—that’s the safest way.”
 

“Start with a clean cow, and then clean and healthy milk, as opposed to taking manure filled milk and then cooking the manure in the milk,” Lopez said. “You need to start with the source.”

With limited widespread research on the health and wellness advantages of raw milk from grass-fed cows, Lopez said that there is evidence suggesting that it maintains higher concentrations of linoleic acids (CLAs), which are thought to be anti-carcinogenic.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ll get people who tell me, ‘I was lactose intolerant, but I can drink your milk,’ and I have to tell them, ‘Hey, there’s lactose in there,’” Lopez said.

“Customers tell me that it lasts two and even three weeks in their refrigerator,” Lopez said, “and that’s because of initial low bacteria counts.”

“I believe our society needs to take a large step toward knowing our farmers on a more personal level,” said one of Lopez’ regular customers, Dane Miller of Reading. “These people provide life, and their product quality is tremendous.”

“If consumers are educated and understand food production, they can make a sound decision on their food consumption,” Miller added.

Carol Wise of Birdsboro, who learned about Wholesome Dairy Farms from her neighbor, said she knew of a woman whose baby could not and would not drink regular milk. “When introduced to raw milk, the baby loved and consumed it regularly without ill effects,” Wise said.

“I found that raw whole milk (from grass-fed cows) contains more vitamins and minerals and is better absorbed by the human body,” said Jody Hulber who lives just outside of Macungie and has been buying raw milk from Lopez for about a year and a half. “Buying fresh raw milk from Wholesome Dairy Farms also reinforces my belief that it’s better to buy locally, get fresh healthy food, and support small, independent farmers.”

Tracey and Jeff Lightner of Zionsville commented, “Even though milk is pasteurized, it may come from sick, unhealthy cows that never chew a blade of grass.” The couple has a family member who is lactose intolerant but loves raw milk because he can drink it without any gastrointestinal difficulties.

“There is a dairy down the road from us that will sell us raw milk, but those cows aren’t grass-fed, and we believe they may receive rBGH,” said the Lightners who drive 35 minutes one way to pick up their milk at Wholesome Dairy Farms.

“Raw milk still contains an enzyme to help the body break down lactose,” Miller said, as the process of pasteurization kills many beneficial nutrients in milk, especially milk made from grass-fed cows.

“The ignorance about real [raw] milk is astounding, both from the fear of disease and the fear of fat,” said Jerry Silberman of Douglassville who initially started drinking raw milk years ago because he wanted milk from a healthy source, knowing it was sustainably handled.

“If we follow commonsense rules of cleanliness, we don’t need to worry about high-tech chemistry to keep our food safe and our bodies healthy,” Silberman said, adding that he hopes other farmers see Lopez’ example, then following it for themselves.

Lopez participates at the Farmers’ Market at Great Valley in Malvern and the Boyertown Farmers' Market.

His raw milk is also for sale at Echo Hill Country Store in Fleetwood and at the Douglassville location of Kimberton Whole Foods.

Lopez sells his raw milk for $5 per gallon and $3.50 per half gallon. Also for sale are Manatawny Mild Cheddar and Gouda, with a Monterey Jack soon in the works. These products, along with grass-fed beef, are available in the milk store at his farm, which is located at 136 Camp Road off of Route 562 in Yellow House.

kopper is king ? a blushing and boastful hibiscus.

behold, a massively petaled kopper king hibiscus tucked into my garden. this is a hardy  (for our zone 6b region, i should note) hibiscus with a dark reddish brown nearly blood-veined set of leaves. it grows to about 3 or 4 feet tall. mine is around that point already.

but unfortunately, the puffy pink petals, with the flowers themselves probably spanning at least 5 or 6 inches across, are apparently considered scrumptious by critters, as evidenced by some holes in their patchwork.

this hibiscus is grown by new jersey's centerton nursery. the man who started the nursery  and began his agricultural escpades in illinois, donald mcallister, headed a top-secret production of marijuana to produce the fiber hemp for the u.s. navy during world war ii, as the government mandated its cultivation as a rotation crop since hemp played a role in making rope.

the day lily blooms i often post are also from centerton nursery in bridgeton. 

this hibiscus' thick stalks should be cut back to about a foot off the ground or less during or before winter. since it blooms later in the season, it often looks completely dead early on in spring. but have patience because it will eventually shoot up new red-gushing growth. the first year i had mine, i thought it died, but i realized that it's just slower to join its glamor into the growing season.

some rain, baby mice, buddleia, and a worthy t-shirt.

in this harshly ungiving summer of almost no precipitation and many a heatwave, this blurred sight soothed my soul for at least 15 minutes. i love rain.

two days ago, i heard the tiniest squealing in the back of the shop, set away in the dark. i thought maybe it was baby pigeons or something along those lines. but it turned out to be two baby mice. i wondered if they fell through a crack in the floorboards in the upper level of the barn.

earlier in the week, i had seen two small corn snakes zipping around in the barn and somehow managed to not scream my head off (i generally scream bloody murder (so female, damn) when i see snakes). so maybe a slithering one ate the mother. i'm not sure. so i scooped the two little furballs  up onto a shrubs catalog and took them outside. they were wrapped in wears of the dusty crevices of the barn.

i called my co-worker terry, as he always knows what to do. he suggested i put them behind the barn near the potting area under the shade of some trees. so i did that, and i broke open sunflower seed shells, giving them the seeds, and also some dried cranberries and mushy pieces of banana. the one mouse ate the seeds like a fiend, while the other wandered off.

the next day, they were both gone from the area. i know they're just babies, so i hope they somehow make it. if a bird swooped down to gobble them up, i don't want to know it !

a butterfly bush (buddleia, as noted in the subject of this post) known as the closest to red as you can find in this shrub's family of blooms is called attraction red. but it still mostly looks purple. it's just a more mauve-y purple.

and after terry left for the morning, he came back to show me his new t-shirt. i've referenced terry quite a bit in past posts. and what a shirt ! i do believe he was quite proud of it, reasonably so.

i didn't know you could legally have the word ''ass'' in the name of a business. i experienced some brain wrinkling on that one !