Milk

On Aug. 23, 1893, ground was broken for the Harford Creamery on a road two miles east of Shawsville and two miles north of Madonna now called Harford Creamery Road. Machinery began churning at the creamery on Dec. 10, 1893. The boiler was known as "Old Bess." With a new plant to process milk up and running, farmers began to keep more cows. The plant at one time had 100 contributors and handled as much as 20,000 pounds of milk a day. The milk was separated from the cream and some of the cream was made into butter.

VALLEJO, Calif. -- My mother is getting older now and is often sick. This is hard to take, as she has always been so strong and emotionally present in my life. Now that she is not as frequently in full bloom, a part of me is afraid and a part of me is sad. Her hand is slowly letting go of mine, and I am not sure what I will do when she lets go altogether. I am not a mama's boy. Far from it. My mother has never coddled me or tried to keep me sheltered from the world. If anything, the opposite is true.

NEW MARKET-- For 32 years, Jeff England awoke each day at 3:30 a.m. The dairy farmer trudged in the dark across the gravel lane separating his red brick Civil War-era home from the cinderblock milking parlor about 150 feet away. He made the trek almost every day since he was 17 - seven days a weeks, at times in bitter cold, deep snow or heavy rain. It was time to milk the cows. But not anymore. England, a 49-year-old farmer whose peers view him as one of the most efficient dairymen in Maryland, has sold his cows.

Five Below, a national retail chain that markets "trend-right" products priced between $1 and $5, has signed a lease for a store at Crossroads Square in Westminster that will hold a grand opening Friday, Saturday and June 3. The Philadelphia-based chain operates 56 stores in five states. The target demographic of Five Below are teens and pre-teens who are searching for "trend-right" and "value-priced" items and are able to spend their own money. Stores are divided into eight product categories, including candy, crafts, media, now, party, room, sports and style.

Agribusiness giant Monsanto Co. is challenging a growing trend among dairies to label their milk "hormone free," saying that claim misleads consumers into believing the cow growth hormone Monsanto makes is unsafe. St. Louis-based Monsanto's aggressive move against a group of dairies to halt use of the labels could send ripples through the food industry. In letters filed recently with the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission, Monsanto protests that milk labels advertising the fact that cows did not receive the hormone - known variously as rBGH, rBST or Posilac, the trade name - have unfairly damaged its business, as well as that of dairy farmers who use the drug on their cows.

WASHINGTON -- A long-running clash over the marketing of meat and milk from cloned animals is coming to a head in Washington as the government prepares to make a ruling that would allow the products to be sold to consumers for the first time. Critics in Congress, including Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, are attempting to delay the action expected from the Food and Drug Administration, which could decide as early as this week to permit sales. These opponents are rushing to gain approval by Congress this week of a provision that would encourage the FDA to delay action until further studies are completed.

A tentative agreement reached by negotiators in Congress would prevent Maryland's dairy farmers from joining a New England pricing cooperative, something they had sought in hopes of getting higher prices for their milk.But the agreement, which still needs congressional approval, would keep that cooperative alive for another two years. And it would not change milk prices as much as an earlier proposal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- a plan that local officials warned could drive many dairy farmers out of business.

A bowl of cold cereal and milk is fine during the work week. Nothing like milk splashing on those flakes to wake you up. No distractions to that breakfast. But on the weekend, prepare something pleasurable. You don't have to rush. The day is long, and you have plenty of time to enjoy it.To set the mood, imagine yourself in the French Riviera on a brilliantly sunny day and think of what you'd cook.You'd probably start with an oversized mug of cafe au lait. Begin by brewing extra-strength coffee.

The extra-fat paychecks of poultry farmers and dairymen last year were not enough to offset big losses by grain growers, and the state ended 1998 with a 3 percent decline in net farm income, according to preliminary estimates released yesterday by the Maryland Agricultural Statistics Service.Total farm income in Maryland fell $8.2 million last year to $265.4 million.It was the second consecutive year that Maryland farmers have been hurt by low commodity prices and drought. Farm income last year was 26 percent lower than in 1996.

WITH Congress killing Maryland dairy farmers' hopes of joining a price-setting Northeast compact, and with a 15-percent drop in federal milk price payments due next month, the shrinking state industry is struggling for new ways to stop the bleeding.One promising approach: a regional program that aims to combine resources to produce efficiencies, and profits, in the dairy industries of the Northeastern states. The plan is modeled after a similar program in New York state that coordinates resources from state agencies, agriculture schools and veterinarians.

Buffalo taste, Polly-O budget. I don't know about you, but this recession has done nothing to curb my appetite for fancy cheese, just my ability to buy it. So I set out to make the stuff at home. That explains why I soon found myself pouring curdled milk into an old pillowcase, on purpose. Dialing up the cheese-making equivalent of the Butterball Turkey hot line. And, eventually, eating some very good and not-so-good cheese. "You make a lot of bad cheese before you make good cheese," Kate Dallam, owner of Broom's Bloom Dairy in Bel Air, said when I'd consulted her at the outset.

Rosie Ahern of Willits, Calif., was looking for a recipe for pineapple squares that she remembers from her childhood. Her mother, who baked bread on a weekly basis, came across the recipe on a package of Fleischmann's yeast. Barbara Davis of Salisbury sent in the recipe she believes is likely the one Ahern was searching for. The photocopy she sent in appears to be from a magazine advertisement for Fleischmann's yeast. She says she has had it since it was published back in the 1950s and it is still a favorite with her family today.

Ron Holter likes to say he's farming as God intended, without pesticides on the grass fields or hormones or antibiotics in the cows. But visitors to his organic dairy farm west of Frederick on Tuesday also heard about how the Earth, animals, consumers - and his pocketbook - are also benefiting. Holter, a fifth-generation farmer at Holterholm Farm in Jefferson, was host to a field day for about 50 farmers to spread the gospel. He's had the tours before, but this year he added speakers on grazing management, farm income and marketing from the day's sponsors at the Maryland Grazer's Network.

Got milk? You should Laura Vozzella's June 7 story on milk may have actually confused more than clarified how to navigate milk choices ("Today, multiple answers to the familiar question: Got Milk?"). True, there are more choices in the dairy case, but milk is good and consumers need to know that and feel good about drinking milk. Milk is the most tested food in our food supply. All milk products are wholesome and safe, whether they come from organic or conventionally managed dairies. I'm a pediatric nutritionist and registered dietitian.

Patty Sullivan of Catonsville is stumped by the dairy case. One kind of milk promises to make her children smarter. Another claims to come from healthier cows. Unable to sort all that out, she reaches for good old, conventional Costco milk."I find it very confusing," said Sullivan, who picks up five gallons a week for the Burtonsville preschool she runs. "You need a research degree to find out the differences. And is it really that much better for you?" Not long ago, consumers only had to ponder one thing before hefting a gallon jug into the shopping cart: How much fat did they want?

By the time you read this, Bobby Prigel, the only organic dairy farmer in Baltimore County, should have a few thousand more bucks to help catch up on his legal bills. His friends and neighbors - at least the farm-friendly neighbors who think that a dairy farmer ought to be able to sell his cows' milk on his own farm - will have thrown a party to defray some of the $130,000 Mr. Prigel has had to spend to get his Long Green Valley creamery open. Other neighbors have not been so generous; they've tried to grind Mr. Prigel down and stop him from processing his milk in the big, barn-style building across the road from where his cows graze.

A man whose efforts to open a creamery at his Long Green Valley dairy farm had been thwarted by a few neighbors emerged victorious Thursday when the Baltimore County Council passed a zoning regulation that will allow him to sell organic products from the milk his cows produce. "This bill will support the county's $300 million agricultural industry, help meet our land preservation goals and help farmers supply fresh local produce to patrons," said Chris McCollum, agriculture liaison for the county's department of economic development.

The full moon rises above Baltimore's eastern horizon at 9:08 tonight, even if these miserable clouds block our view. It won't be precisely full until just after midnight, but who's measuring? This is the second full moon after the spring equinox, and therefore the one once called by various people in various place the Milk Moon, Corn Planting Moon, Flower Moon or Hare Moon.

While prices might still seem painfully high in the supermarket aisles, long-suffering consumers are beginning to see a break in their grocery bills - a bit of good news amid the economic gloom. Falling raw-material costs coupled with a feeble economy have curbed soaring food inflation in recent months. Food prices fell on a month-to-month basis in February for the first time since April 2006. Last year, food and beverage prices as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics rose 5.4 percent, the largest annual jump since 1990, because of a big run-up in commodity and energy costs.

Any shelter in a storm. After a March snowstorm in Baltimore 49 years ago, gale winds drifted waist-high snow across Dulaney Valley Road north of Loch Raven Reservoir, stranding 40 motorists. They took refuge at the Cloverland farm north of Peerce's Plantation. The Sun reported: "The unexpected guests were able to keep warm in the barn with the 100-head herd of milk cows." And no one went thirsty.