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Small Planet: Dispatches on Sustainable Living:
Milk Done Well, Home Delivered
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| by Sarah & Grant Moerschel
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Picture milk in glass bottles. Do you remember those thick clear glass containers filled with fresh creamy milk? Maybe you’ve seen those tiny pint bottles now and again full of heavy cream that makes the most delicious whipped cream you’ve ever tasted. Few food images exceed the romantic notion of milk in a bottle because it’s a physical link to our past. Those were the days when you could get that stuff delivered right to your doorstep. Gone forever, right?
Not if you know about South Mountain Creamery. Just 20 minutes away from Shepherdstown, nestled between Boonsboro and Middletown on Bolivar Road, is a dairy of more than 200 cows. Owned and operated by Randy and Karen Sowers and their family, the Creamery has been delivering milk, ice cream, yogurt, butter, cheese, and eggs directly to consumers for about seven years.
Though not officially a USDA organic farm, the Sowers’ dairy uses common sense traditional (non-corporate) farming methods. This means that they do not and never have used rBgh growth hormones. Nor do they use unnecessary antibiotics. The cows are given “free choice feeding.” The cows choose between munching on a grain mixture in the barn or grazing in the pasture. No pesticides are used in the pasture or in the fields where the grains grow.
The Sowers family purchased the farm in 1987 and placed a conservation easement on the land. Until 2001, all milk produced at the farm was sold to a cooperative dairy association. Starting with 13 delivery customers in 2001, the Sowers have transformed the dairy into a thriving business that supplies locally produced products to 2,300 customers within a 60-mile radius. Their homemade yogurt, cheese, and butter are produced at the dairy in Middletown, in ultra-clean controlled environments. Other products like pork, chicken, eggs, and even prepared meals are supplied by other local farms. Mrs. Sowers gave us a tour of the milking parlor, which is an impressively modern facility designed to gently bring these four-legged lovelies through the process through which they give us the gifts we enjoy.
We interviewed two avid fans of their products recently, our children William and Hannah Moerschel. When asked what she likes about the milk, Hannah comments, “It’s really yummy and I like to drink it. I love it when the milkman brings us fresh milk on Tuesdays.” Will’s comments were along the same vein. “The ice cream is really good and cold and sweet. I love going to the farm to feed the calves.” The interview at the Creamery included visiting the calf shed guarded by the spotted guinea fowl that, according to Mrs. Sowers, are “like watchdogs with wings. Whenever something is wrong they get all stirred up.”
But Jefferson County’s easy access to this fine example of local agriculture is in danger of disappearing. Though the Creamery has subscribers in our area, we are more spread out than the customer base close to Baltimore and D.C. The Sowers want to continue serving our market, but high fuel prices and difficult sparse routes are forcing hard business decisions. They need more subscribers, preferably grouped together, to keep the Jefferson County delivery route alive. Their milk competes well on price with other organic brands like Horizon Organic—even when you factor in the weekly delivery charge. On taste and romance, there is no comparison. Plus there is the knowledge that you’re contributing to a sustainable farm economy.
Don’t let this get away! Consider sharing a milk delivery with two or three neighbors to reduce the delivery cost. For information, go to www.southmountaincreamery.com or call (301) 371-8565. Or visit the farm at 8305 Bolivar Road in Middletown, Md., and see the cows being milked between 1:30 and 5 pm each day. Take the kids and help feed the baby calves at 4 pm. Buy some ice cream and yogurt from their store. Subscribe if you can. You won’t regret it.
The Moerschels live in Shepherdstown. Sarah is a physician practicing in Harpers Ferry. Grant is a fashionably nerdy computer consultant who could easily have his own cooking show.
still recall my first compact fluorescent light bulb. It cost about $20. It was the size of a softball. I had to search every lamp and light fixture in my home to find one it would fit. When powered up, it emitted a stark fluorescent light that was hard on the eyes. I loved it!
It was 1990 and CFLs had just hit the market. I was a budding environmentalist and got excited about anything that promised a smaller footprint on the Earth. That first 13-watt compact fluorescent light bulb would replace a 60-watt incandescent bulb, saving significant energy over the course of its extended lifespan. With its oversized globe, its slight hum and its ghastly glow, this early CFL was far from perfect, but it was a start.
Perhaps you tried compact fluorescents way back when. I know many people who test drove those early versions, found them disappointing, reinstalled their old reliable incandescent bulbs and never looked back.
I don’t blame people for being turned off by those early CFLs. They were fine for some lighting applications and decidedly lacking for others. But these bulbs have come a long way since their initial commercialization in the late 1980s. They’re now widely available. Prices have come way down. They still save significant amounts of energy over incandescent bulbs—they’re up to 75% more efficient—with a lifespan up to 10 times as long.
The bulbs have shrunk, the light has softened, and CFLs now come in a range of shapes and functional options, including dimmable and three-way. In short, nearly 20 years later, it’s time to take another look at the CFL.
In choosing a CFL you’ll be happy with, it’s important to understand how to match it against the incandescent bulb it will be replacing. CFL packaging often encourages a watt to watt comparison—a 23-watt CFL is the replacement for a 100-watt incandescent bulb. Sometimes this formula works just fine, but a better measure for comparing bulbs is found in the lumens, or the amount of light the bulb emits. A 60-watt incandescent bulb puts out about 800 lumens while a 100-watt bulb shines at closer to 1600 lumens. You’ll want to choose a CFL that is rated for the same or even a slightly higher lumen output as the incandescent you’re replacing. You can find a lumen rating chart at www.EnergyStar.gov.
The warmth or color rendition of the light emitted by the bulb should also be considered. This is measured in something called Kelvin, but is usually more simply expressed in a range from warm or soft white (a slight yellowish tinge akin to typical incandescent light quality) through cool white (a little bluer) to daylight. For most living-space uses, warm white provides the most comfortable quality of light.
The energy and cost savings promised by CFLs is most fully realized when the bulbs are used in lamps and fixtures that get left on for several hours at a time. That lamp you switch on each evening and leave on until bedtime is the perfect place to try them.
Selecting the ideal CFL for each individual light fixture requires a little experimentation. Purchase a few single CFLs of different lumen output and color rendition, and try them out. Resist buying the 24-bulb economy pack until you’re certain that those particular bulbs work for you. For some Consumer Reports-style testing of different CFL bulbs, check out the May 2007 issue of Popular Mechanics.
See www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/home_improvement/4215199.html.
Jeff Feldman is a green building consultant. He and his wife Kristin live in a straw bale home in Berkeley County. You can reach Jeff at jfeld33@aol.com.
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