Rebuild from Depression Blog

We are no strangers to tagging here in Central California. The custodians at the local high schools, parks, and shopping malls keep their gallon of paint handy to cover up the evidence. The gallon of paint is usually a slightly different color from the original wall paint, which remains the only evidence of the tagging until night falls again.

Tagging isn't usually political but this week was an exception.

Part I in the Rambling Raw Milk Series

Few towns are much smaller than Pixley, California. Pixley's claim to fame is that it is the headquarters of the Cal-Bean co-op, provides a gas station or two for those traveling Central California's Highway 99, had an honors-system gas station until about thirty years ago, and just narrowly escaped educating my father who lived in Teviston, a community just south of Pixley. Teviston is one of those few places smaller than Pixley. Teviston, in fact, is one of those places that do not make conventional maps.

As we drive through Pixley a time or two a week, we usually do not take notice. But Thursday, January 11th, I took the exit off of Highway 99 in Teviston, saw the old family estate, and drove north to Pixley to get a close-up look at the Milk is Milk billboard that got tagged sometime between December 15th and 19th.

I wanted a close-up look of the billboard and I wondered if I would face a "No trespassing" sign between the main road and the billboard. I decided that with my preschooler in the car with me, I would remain law-abiding.

Billboard Close Up

As it turns out, the day did not offer me any difficult decisions. The road to the billboard could not have been more accessible. Paving would have been nice, but the county did provide me with an "End" sign on that dirt road. The End sign is there apparently to keep people from driving through the fence and onto the Highway 99 by accident.

When I got close to the billboard, I saw that the billboard offered no challenge for a person with a can of spray paint or a bucket of latex. Those billboard companies make billboard maintenance and tagging very easy by providing you with a comfortable platform to stand on. The platform was only six or so feet off the ground, making it very easy for anyone with any kind of upper body strength to pull themselves up. An out-of-shape person could have hopped on their car and onto the platform.

I took a few pictures and headed back to the main road.

As I got to the main road, I noticed a local farmer making note of my presence.

"Perhaps he thinks I'm lost," I decided.

I headed into Pixley, passed the decomposing location of the former honor-system gas station and the Cal-Bean co-op. I noted the location of another old family estate and of a good Mexican restaurant. I headed to preschool.

Billboard is Noticed

What I did not realize is that possibly on that same day, Alex Avery, director of research for the Milk is Milk campaign, was only just informed that the billboard had been tagged. He issued a press release the next day. In the press release Avery states that "We have reported the defacement to the billboard company, as well as to the local police."

I wondered if the farmer I saw as I left the area of the billboard had been asked to keep a look-out for unscrupulous characters in the area of the billboard.

At first I thought "ah-ha, preschool moms sure do get away with a lot these days!"

My second thought was "Pixley doesn't have a police department."

Pixley Doesn't Have a Police Department

Indeed, Pixley is such a small town that it is not incorporated as a city and falls under the authority of the county sheriff's department.

I wondered how I might get information from the county sheriff's department about this crime.

And then I thought "Oh, ask Scott."

Scott is a deputy in another area of the county, overseeing all of the communities competing with Pixley for "small town" status. The winner may actually be the community I live in. Few people would even call it a "town."

Somehow over the years, this little burg has managed to have a live-in county sheriff's deputy. Back in the 1980s, a deputy named Mike came over to shoot a rattle snake sunning on a rock outside our house. Another came by in the 1990s to intimidate a ne'er-do-well out of our house.

Scott is the deputy now and is best known for almost arresting my three-year-old son.

The alarm at the local school went off one sleepy weekend and the school's superintendent/principal/teacher and a volunteer deputy showed up to find my three-year old son and my husband looking rather sheepish. My son had tripped the alarm.

The next week we walked into the post office, ran into Deputy Scott, and Postmaster Dean said "that's the boy who broke into the school."

My three-year-old son responded, unprompted, "I plead the fifth."

And now you know why I am trying to be a good example to him by not passing "No trespassing" signs. He needs some good examples. But I digress.

Back to the point that Pixley has no police. The investigation of the billboard is a county matter. And when it's a county matter, the go-to person here is Deputy Scott.

Scott surely has many opinions of the miscreants here in Tulare County. Some of those opinions may even be stated on the record. I'll give him a call.

Next in the series:

Part II: Red-Hot County Investigation

Part II in the Rambling Raw Milk Series

Read Part I: Crime Scene Photos

My visit to the one-room school house here in California Hot Springs led to some critical information about the raw milk billboard crime.

Sheriff Deputy Scott was at the school that day to help celebrate his daughter's birthday (with four large pizzas).

I helped myself to a piece of pizza and said "Scott, let's talk about that Pixley crime involving the Milk is Milk billboard."

"What?"

"Scott, this crime was reported to the Pixley Police Department, haven't you heard about it?"

"Mandy, there is no Police Department in Pixley," Scott responded, using my name from my younger years.

"But surely it's been reported somewhere," I added.

"Well, let me make a call and find out."

Scott called the ladies who input the Sheriff's Department reports. Neither remembered such a report.

"You know, it was some sort of billboard just south of town."

Neither even seemed to remember the billboard.

He called the deputy assigned to the area.

"What?" the deputy asked.

I wondered if people in Pixley even knew about the billboard, much less the crime. So I asked Sander to interview some staff at Pixley School. In his sample of two, one had never noticed the billboard in any form. The other saw it but had no idea why it would be tagged with the word "raw."

A third person, a traveler through Central California, noticed the billboard and thought it was an advertisement for raw milk. She had heard of raw milk before.

So few locals noticed the tagging which explains why it took nearly a month for the Milk is Milk Campaign to hear about the tagging. Even after they heard about it, the billboard remained as-is for another two weeks.

Outside of Tulare County, interest in the billboard include Richard Morris at Bread and Money (who calls the Milk is Milk campaign "political astroturfing" -- a fake grass-roots movement), about five hundred people who have seen my rambling series, and the Milk is Milk campaign itself.

Graffiti is Covered

About two weeks ago now, one week before 100,000 farmers would gather at the World Ag Expo in Tulare, the billboard was painted black. The original Milk is Milk vinyl sign is still there, it is just covered in black paint. You can see the seams from the original sign if you drive up to the billboard and look (that is, if you have too much time on your hands and are apparently the only person in the county interested in the billboard).

I saw the black billboard and thought "This billboard is screaming to be tagged." I wondered if it would be tagged again before the World Ag Expo. It would have been quite the discussion in the dairy pavilion there, had anyone actually noticed it. But the farm show (as the locals call it), has come and gone.

Current Status of the Investigation

I asked Scott what was to come of the billboard investigation. He looked at me like I was nuts. "There is no report."

"Scott, can I report the crime? Sander is a key timeline witness after all."

"Do you have some standing in the crime?"

"Yes, it brings people to my website."

"You'll get more people to your website if you post that steer slaughter picture on rotten.com." Editor's note: do not visit rotten.com unless you are interested in seeing human versions of those steer pictures.

Naptime

So, it's hard to write about nothing, even though I've managed to fill up Parts I and II of this story with absolutely nothing.

There are rumors of a billboard tagging confession. If a confession materializes, I'll report back. When the billboard gets replaced with an ad for a gentleman's club, I'll report back.

Until then, enjoy a cold glass of milk, raw or pasteurized. ;)

I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to the organic dairy industry. I buy my milk from an area source. It is organic (and actually raw). It's good milk and I am happy to have it. I've read research on organic versus non-organic milk, pasteurized versus raw, but it is yet another thing to familiarize yourself with the functioning of the industry.

Since I live in the west coast headquarters of the dairy industry and we have shenanigans around here like the tagging of the Milk is Milk billboard, the workings of the industry has become more interesting to me.

Who knew we would have so much excitement here in Tulare County that I would post a cast of characters. Well, excitement is relative, and things move very slowly around here, so perhaps I just have too much time on my hands.

The Places

Pixley, California would be easy to miss. With a population of 2,586 in the 2000 Census, it is about 40 minutes north of Bakersfield and one hour south of Fresno on the Highway 99 in Central California.

The search for grazing dairy cows landed me out in the Pixley countryside earlier this week. With a family history in the community, you would think that nothing would surprise me. The west side of Pixley, out in the alkaline flats, did surprise me a bit.

First, you should know that the whole west side of the southern San Joaquin Valley naturally has high alkaline soil. Take a bunch of salt and sprinkle it in your yard and you'll get some sense of what grows in high alkaline soil. (You know, don't really do that because you'll pretty much kill everything that's there.)

Driving through the alkaline flats is much like driving through a desert, without the beauty of the desert plants.

It appears that the Vander Eyk Dairy is no longer an organic dairy reports the San Francisco Chronicle in breaking news.

It certainly never deserved to be certified, so I can't say I'm surprised. But it has taken some time to get de-certified.

You may know I've been intrigued by these cows since February. In the post "Almost Organic" I talk about these heifers that are living much like the Vander Eyks heifers. And I talk a bit about my travel to the dairy itself.

Actually, I found the Vander Eyk cattle just days after writing the "Almost Organic" post and have been collecting video footage since that time.

Later today you will see a video here on this blog with some of the footage I've collected. The footage includes exclusive pictures of the pastured part of the herd and the cows at the dairy.

I live in the dairy capital of the world, Tulare County, California. I have become obsessed with all things dairy as you can see from my Milk Shenanigans posts.

In my obsession, I have spent many hours this spring taking photos and video footage of an organic dairy so mammoth that it is mind boggling. Even though I see dairies around here all the time and though I was a member of the Future Farmers of America in my youth, I was still shocked by this particular dairy. The shock fed my obsession.

The Vander Eyk Dairy is not the only 10,000 cow dairy in the area, but it is the only one that sold part of its milk as "organic."

Organic standards require lactating cows to have access to pasture unless the ground is frosty. The Vander Eyk cows apparently got trucked to 10,000 acres of pasture land "near Ducor" for their grass fix. I happened upon that reference in an old local newspaper and it was that phrase that began my obsession.

I live near Ducor too.

Samuel Fromartz, author or Organic Inc., reports at the Chewswise Blog that our favorite former organic dairy is seeking recertification.

This is really the problem with eulogies. You write a eulogy and it turns out the thing wasn't dead after all. Perhaps the sequel to "A Eulogy Written on A Country Pasture" will be modeled after a 1970s B-movie and called "Return of the Zombie Cows."

(Actually, the videographer is about to have his sinuses detailed. He's out of the game for a few weeks. Then again, he is having the detailing done near The Cow Palace. Maybe that is significant somehow.)

It is probably not a big surprise to people who have been following the Vander Eyk Dairy news that the local rumors are that the dairy lost its certification because its cows did not have access to pasture as required under organic standards.

The Cornucopia Institute has questioned its compliance for years. Last month it lost its certification. I created a video eulogy to the dairy and since that time I've gotten emails suggesting that the dairy was seeking recertification. A Capital Press story earlier this week reported that they were in the certification process, but Samuel Fromartz now reports that they will not be recertifying the dairy, just the pasture.

Here in Tulare County, the nation's leader in milk production, confinement dairy systems are the rule where land values are high. Herds are counted in the thousands. The number of cows approaches half a million. A 2006 population estimate puts the county's human population at just over 400,000. It is very likely that we have more dairy cows than people here. If you throw in the beef cattle, the human population would have to do a lot of procreating to catch up. With these dairy systems, Tulare County does produce an impressive amount of milk for American consumers.

Dairy news is big news in this county and the local aggies are buzzing with Vander Eyk news since the Capital Press article. Locals do tend to notice that something is different about the Vander Eyk Dairy and local talk is supportive.

I own the last remaining gallon of milk recalled in the September 2006 recall of Organic Pastures milk. At least I can't imagine that anyone else has kept a gallon this long.

We were part of a buyer's club and put in an extra large order the week before the recall and, quite by accident, I ended up with about eight gallons in the refrigerator. We had consumed a few before the recall. When the recall was announced I wondered what we should do with the milk. You know, you are supposed to pour it down the drain and get your money back.

I wondered what to do.

My mom said, "Well, I've been drinking it and I'm going to keep drinking it."

So we all did.

In fact, we went to the press conference announcing the end of the recall and offered some milk to reporters. That is one way to get your picture taken.

This winter as I cleaned the freezer, I found a gallon of milk dated in mid September of 2006 -- definitely a gallon of the recalled milk. I got the bright idea to auction it on eBay and that has been my plan until now.

Pictured: Aaron McAfee, Operations Manager at Organic Pastures, verifying the milk

Breaking news this week is that Aurora's Platteville facility was put on a health recovery plan. To remain an organic dairy, the USDA is requiring a bit of health remediation. In the meantime, Aurora agreed to operate its facility in Woodward as a conventional dairy.

Unlike the Vander Eyk Dairy, then, it did not actually lose its certification. But the organic dairy facility, in fact, no longer exists. The Bessys are still milking but the dairy managers have probably placed a large order for regular feed corn to replace their certified organic feed.

You know, I really thought I was the one who was crazy living in the Sequoia National Forest, talking about the breast size of chickens, and taking pictures of highway art by raw milk enthusiasts. But there is some serious madness in the government here in California. On October 8, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a law that will effectively end the commercial sales of raw milk.

The bill is politically crazy because it was passed without the consultation of raw milk consumers. It is scientifically crazy as well - it has no scientific legs.

Crazy Politicians
Citizens in this country are increasingly concerned about food safety as food recalls make the news weekly. California law makers decided to do Californians a favor and protect them from raw milk.

The new law limits the coliform count in raw milk to 10 or fewer per milliliter. Coliform bacteria are a diverse lot, E. coli 0157:H7 (that pathogenic form of E. coli that is making the news so much lately) is a coliform. There are a lot of other coliform strains as well. Researchers have found that coliform Enterobacter asburiae reduces the growth of E. coli 0157:H7 on lettuce. Citrobacter freundii competes with Salmonella. So this group of coliform bacteria is a mixed bag.

What makes the coliform requirement particularly crazy is that there are tests available for pathogens. Lawmakers concerned with food safety could just test for those. Testing for coliforms, when more precise tests are available, is simply bizarre. I expect a high coliform count could make my milk spoil faster, but I cannot see why anyone is concerned about the flavor of my milk.

I love this time of year in cattle country. The pastures have been empty for months because cattle summer elsewhere, typically high up in the forest. In those months, moms have had babies and they all return to their lower elevation homes for the winter. We see many babies this time of year frolicking in the pastures.

Two of the more notorious pastures in our area are owned by the Vander Eyk Dairy, the organic dairy that lost its certification this past spring. One pasture is in the foothills and another at about 2500 feet elevation, just a ten minute drive from our house. On these pastures the Vander Eyks grazed their heifers and claimed that such grazing met the organic standards for dairy production. The heifers lived in paradise while the cows (doing the heavy lifting for the dairy and actually producing the milk) got to live in an industrial dairy near Pixley.

Ever since the last of the Holstein heifers was moved from the Vander Eyk pasture in June and since the decertification became public, I have wondered if we would see any Holsteins in the mountains this winter. It is pretty unusual to see Holsteins in beef cattle country. After losing their organic certification, there has been discussion that the Vander Eyk dairy might seek recertification. As I said, I've wondered what we would see here this winter. The Vander Eyk pasture land could surely be an indication of its intentions.

My husband Sander checked it out the foothill property last week and claimed to have spotted three Holsteins.

"Sander, but you only got pictures of beef cattle."

"No, there were some black and white cows too."

"Sander, just because it's black and white doesn't make it a Holstein. When you think of Holstein you need to think 'Dalmation' like from '101 Dalmations.' We have the movie in the front room. "

"I know what a Holstein is. I am sure there were three Holsteins there. I got pictures of them."

"All of the pictures are of beef cattle."

"Really? You're right then, the Holsteins were not in the picture, but they are there. I saw them. I saw three of them to be exact."

Before the USDA decided to enforce the organic standard, I expect evidence like Sander's was good enough for certification.

Times are changing. This dairy was decertified in the spring for not meeting the pasture requirement. The USDA is getting tough. A ruminant animal with black and white fur isn't necessarily going to count as part of the herd any longer as much as my urbanite husband insists that it is. And then they really need to be pastured when they are actually milking -- the key part of the law that inspired the decertification of the Vander Eyk Organic Dairy, the removal of one Aurora Dairy from the organic system, and the lawsuits against the Aurora Dairy and its retailers like Wal-Mart.

Holstein Sighting

For about a week, the household joke has been the "Holsteins" that Sander spotted.

"Maybe they were Halfsteins, not really Holsteins," said Sander after I drove by the property twice and saw no dairy cattle.

When our Kindergartener son got involved in the discussion this morning adding "There are no Holsteins there," Sander decided to investigate further.

"Look at my computer screen!"

Thanks to a whole lot of pixels, Sander was able to display something pretty amazing on his computer screen.

"Holy cow! Those are Holstein!"

What has been the household joke for the better part of the week turns out to be on us. There are at least three Holsteins in the foothill area.

To complete the Vander Eyk cow census for December, I should add that I did find one Holstein grazing in the higher elevation Vander Eyk pasture.

I took a picture of the animal as a courtesy to the dairy. When the dairy seeks recertification, this picture can provide independent documentation that they are meeting the pasture requirement. My husband Sander is also available for testimony.

Further Reading:

"I Better Not See it On the Blog"
Holstein Breed Characteristics

You never know what you will find around here when you decide to take the back road on a beautiful day. I found grazing Holstein heifers from the Vander Eyk Dairy.

The Vander Eyk Dairy is the dairy we love to hate on this blog, but I have gotten a bit soft on it in my advancing age. My husband and I made a video eulogy to the dairy back in June when its organic certification status (or lack of) was made public. The dairy lacked pasture, just like two other rather notorious feedlot dairies in the country. I wrote about one on The Ethicurean and its diagnosis of Absencia Grassiosis.

Back when the Vander Eyk Dairy got chopped, it seemed like great progress. It was one big win for the integrity of the organic label. Nine months later, it would appear that not a whole lot has happened to the fellow feedlot operators at Aurora Organic Dairy and Dean Foods (Horizon). In a battle with lines drawn between the “big guys” and “little guys,” Vander Eyk is a little guy running a big dairy. The real “big guys” are still bottling organic milk as they transition to a system that gives their cows access to pasture.

Seeing the Vander Eyk cows today made that point come home: the Vander Eyks may well be in a transition phase back to organics themselves and yet they are not allowed to continue bottling.

As far as I’m concerned, if the USDA is not going to enforce the standard for Dean and Aurora, then the local dairymen should be able to get back in the game.

The situation reminds me a bit of a job I was on years ago. We were doing a study that included my old high school. We surveyed teachers as part of the study and those teachers from my school who were from my era got a little cute on their surveys:

“The only good thing I see in this reform is that it has provided a job for a researcher.”

I got a good belly laugh and, of course, I knew from the handwriting exactly who made the comment. He knew that I knew and I knew that he knew that I knew.

When I saw the heifers grazing on Vander Eyk land and with Vander Eyk ear tags, I thought “Good for you, Bessies.”

If we’re going to have organic mega-dairies they might as well be right here helping the Tulare County economy and giving me blog fodder.

If you read this blog even a little bit, you know that I am pretty passionate about raw milk. I worked on California’s AB1735 campaign back in October and have the last remaining gallon of milk from the 2006 recall of Organic Pastures milk for E. coli 0157:H7. I tried to mail the milk to David Gumpert at The Complete Patient, but he thought that the existence of the milk brought too much attention to the issue of pathogens in raw milk and, later, he poked me over being too caught up in raw milk minutiae. Boy, is he right. I vowed here a month or two ago that I would stop thinking about E. coli.

My problem is that stuff just keeps coming up that nearly throws me into coronary arrest. My husband calls it “entertainment,” but raw milk doesn’t do a lot for him in the first place, so I guess he can just be entertained. I am not entertained at all.

I listened to the raw milk hearings here in the state the other night and I find it hard to listen to them without a great deal of cynicism because of the elephant in the raw milk room. In fact, I have been having a hard time not letting that cynicism eat me up. Raw milk is supposed to be health-giving, after all. For every enzyme or bacteria it may have added to my digestive system, it has stolen a second of my sleep as well, so I'll just get to it and tell the story.

If you are arriving to the story late, I’ll include a bit of background before I get to the bad stuff.

The children
On September 21, 2006, my sister called to tell me that Organic Pastures raw milk was recalled because of possible bacteria contamination. Surrounding that recall, six children were sickened by the pathogenic E. coli 0157:H7 and all six apparently had raw milk. I say “apparently,” because it’s actually more complicated. To the best of my knowledge, the outbreak looked like this:

To do my part in contributing to bacteria-phobia, I asked Doug Powell at BarfBlog whether we pregnant folks should be eating Baskin-Robbins soft serve ice cream (see my post). The company gave away soft serve cones yesterday (“Bump Day”) to pregnant customers.

Powell recommends avoiding the soft serve treat. He mentioned soft serve as being on the “avoid” list in Australia and describes the “dirty machine” problem I speculated about. He also poked Baskin-Robbins' celebrity spokesperson:

I have no idea why they targeted expectant moms, or why they recruited a pregnant Tori Spelling as spokesthingy.

After making the celebrity news rounds today because of Powell’s post, Baskin Robbins says the only risk of listeria is from improper pasteurization. Of course, that assumes the employees know how to clean out the machines.

I asked a food safety expert here in California if I faced a greater risk from soft serve ice cream than from outsourced raw milk. He declined to comment.

For my own part, I did not partake of the Baskin Robbins deal yesterday. With a population of a few hundred people here in the Sequoia National Forest, we have to stick with the scoop sort of ice cream when the General Store happens to be open. We also have the option of making our own.

I will admit that I did eat something on the obsessively-avoid list and was somewhat pleased that food obsession does not yet rule my pregnancy. For some of us, I expect the obsession holds a greater risk than the potential for bacteria. (But yes, I am still pretty obsessive.)