This past saturday evening I attended a harvest-dinner hosted by the husband and wife who run a small farmers-market that itself is an adjunct to the CSA (crop share association) they have been running for about 10 years now. The quick background to my experience of coming to know this couple is, about 2 months ago, while reading various articles connected to Jerry Brunetti, I found out that within 10 miles of where I live there is a small dairy operations locally producing raw milk and a few derivative products (namely, cheese). The first day that I drove to that dairy I took the opportunity to talk to the man who was running the operation. That was a very educational & beneficial conversation. Among the things he told me was that there was a small farmers-market operating just down the road about 3 miles from his dairy, and he gave me directions how to get there. The timing turned out to be right so I drove over there that same afternoon, saw the small market and met the Mr. & Mrs. who own & operate it. The bonus to this particular leg of my recent journey was - the beekeeper was there. Hhe maintains 3 hives back in the one corner of the field where Mr & Mrs grow some of their crops. That too turned out to be an educational experience.

After that first day of meeting and visiting with the dairy people, and the farmers-market people, it has since become part of my later-morning, early-afternoon Saturday routine that I drive over to the dairy for milk, eggs and such, then swing by the market to either get some produce goods OR just to talk with Mr. & Mrs while persusing the products they have available that day. Basically, their market, which only runs one day a week, serves as an outlet for them to sell produce & products that are leftover / overflow from their CSA. Now that I've gotten to know this couple fairly well, I've learned that in 10 years of operating this CSA, they have learned that the sweet-spot for them is roughly 25 members. In other words, the amount of time & effort Mr. & Mrs. must put forth in order to meet the obligations of their CSA tops out around 25 members. This particular CSA provides produce & products for 3 seaons out of the years, the first season begins in late spring, then there is the main season that begins in early July (when various crop vegetables & fruits  begin to ripen), then there is an early fall season. In other words, this twosome is putting forth the labor required to keep 25 members (families) supplied with natural produce & food products for roughly 8 months out of the years. Now, imagine the benefits to humanity if, say, a whole bunch more twosomes across this planet were putting forth similar labor? It is easy to imagine that humanity might find itself in the position of not being held reliant/hostage to the big-agri, big-chemcial, big-pharma syndicate that has otherwise taken control of this world's food supply......food for thought, anyway, but this is not the main topic of this post.

In the past two months of visting with Mr & Mrs farmers-market every Saturday, I've come to learn all kinds of things. One of the no-brainers is, this couple is a big believer & advocate of real, raw milk. They are also a big advocate of the family running the small raw dairy/cheese operation just down the road from them. Another tidbit I've learned is, the Mrs (her name is Chris) has a father who is in his eighties, still alive and well and THIS after having been a two-time survivor of orthodox treatment of cancer. In other words, her father developed cancer about 10 years ago. He went through the orthodox treatment mill and mircale of mircales, he managed to survive that. Then about 6 or 7 years after, he developed a totally different brand of cancer, and once again went through the orthodox cancer mill and managed to come out the other end alive, again!...... what are the odds? Well, across all cancers as a collective using figures mostly produced by orthodoxy themselves, orthodoxy has a 1 in 20 success rate in treating any cancer such that there patient lives for at least five years after this ordeal. IE> 5% success rate..... and this fellow has succeeded two, separate, individual cancer events.

Anyway, about a month ago during a Saturday visit to the farmer's market, I noticed how Chris seemed to be exceptionally busy, running around the market doing this, that  and the other. Their market is a very well-buiilt small building, made out of wood, with a roof. The front end has a big open multi-purpose room. The back end has a kitchen, with real stoves and such. I asked Chris why she seemed to be run ragged and she said "it's because I'm preparing for tonight's harvest dinner". She then explained that about 8 times a years, she and her husband host a dinner wherein they feature their own produce & food products. Besides growing a wide variety of fruits & vegetables raised using natural/safe & organic methods, they also raise a few cows, and chickens, and pigs. To be clear, their organic methods are not to be confused with U.S.G.'s more modern new definition of "organic" and or "certified organic", but instead is based upon traditional, real, natural, genuine organic methods. Just like they labor/produce for 25 CSA members, when they host these harvest dinners, they serve approximately 25 (to 30) people. On that particular day, they were already sold out for the dinner that evening, but at least I got in the loop to be aware of near-future dinners. My first such was this past Saturday.

The theme of this past saturday's meal was "grilled kabobs" consisting of chunks of squashes, peppers, mushrooms, cucumbers,  beef and chicken. The first course included home-made bread and a salad made with various greens/lettuces in a mix of tomatoe, cucumber & squash with a plain vinegar & oil dressing. The main beverage choices were home-made iced mint tea, and water. When it came seating time, I naturally gravitated towards this one older fellow that I had bumped into earlier that day when I shopped at the market. It was not until later in the evening, roughly 1/2 hour into the meal during which I was sitting beside him and his wife that I made the connection -  found out that he was Chris' father  IE> the two-time survivor of the orthodox cancer mill. This is where the story gets even more interesting.   

There was something about this fellow's general attitude / behavior that sort of drew me to him. This I first noticed earlier in the day when I passed by him while browsing the market. We spoke briefly then but all I knew was he was just some old, lively, friendly (but ornery) fellow who happened to be in the market the same time as I. Later that evening, when the crowd arrived for the dinner, I met him again. This time we shook hands and introduced ourselves to each other and he told me "call me Irv". I told him that there was something about his general manner that put me to mind of Red Skelton. He got a gleam in his eyes and produced a good-natured chuckle. Even though he told me he was Chris' father, I had forgotten the story she told me about his ordeals with cancer. We sit down to dinner, he and his wife on one side of the table. I was sort of the loner to this gathering, didn't know many people, and while I was contemplating in my mind where would be a good place for me to sit, I naturally graduated to this fellow's table and sat down across from him. Then the food started to flow as did eventually the conversations of substance. There was of course several other people sitting at our table who I did not know other than having just met them. After the traditional "so, where do you live, what do you do, how did you end up here?" introductory kinds of conversations, at least at our end of the table, the friendly conversations gradually grew more substantive.   

I don't remember exactly how the conversation reached the point that it did, but it was somewhere along the lines of Irv talking about all the nonsensical regulations he's required in order to pump his well water into and around his property. He lives about 3 hours east, just a bit west of Philadelphia. As an 80-year old person, Irv of course has lots of valuable stories and information to tell from his life to somebody - a relative youngster, like me and most everybody else sitting nearby. Now that I think back on that night, I remember it was during the end of the meal when coffee was served that raw milk became part of the conversation at our end of the table. Naturally, in the back of my mind I has assumed that since Chris, her husband and many of her CSA customers are advocates of things natural - like raw milk, that her father would have the same disposition. It was when the creamer & sugar dish was placed down on the table that I soon became disabused of this notion. The creamer happened to be set near me. I picked it up and held it towards Irv, assuming he would want to add some to his cup of coffee. To my surprise, in a good-natured way he said "oh, I want nothing to do with that raw milk stuff", and he rolled his eyese and shook his head at the same time. I was a bit dumbfounded. At the same time Chris just happened to be passing by the table, overheard some of our comments and in her own good natured way said "Drew, I love my father dearly, don't get me wrong, but try not to pay too much attention to his views on milk" and she continued walking on by to the other side of the room. With the obvious question then hanging in the air, I bit and said "this really interests me Irv, please, tell me how you came to have your contrary view of raw milk".

He then went on to tell the story of how, about 40 years ago or so, he had come to work in what was then a modern milk/dairy factory. He described this huge machine/vat that was used as putting milk through it's successive "pasteurizing", followed by "homogenization" processes. He desribed how the vat contained these huge mechanical levers that would first smash/pound/pulverize the liquid milk up against a rigid surface, and then these other mechanical filters would stir and sweep through the milk picking up the "residue". He said "if you had seen, the way I saw, the kind of junk, puss, bacteria and such that I saw taken out of milk, you would not be a believer in raw milk either". I had to think about that a few minutes, to let it sink in before trying to reply in any kind of informed or intelligent way. The good thing was, this was all a matter of friendly conversation. Even though our respective voices may have been raising, ebbing and such, none of us were getting into argument, we were really just discussing things at a level and in ways that people by and large seem to have lost or forgotten the art of how to have a nice, real, genuine convseration discussing things of substance rather than superficial things. The milk-component of the conversation sort of died down for a few minutes and quickly transitioned into other interesting topics, like the general idea of CSA and small groups of individuals trying to become self sufficient and thereby less reliant upon big brother for things that were once so simple -providing for one's own food. The discussion of milk came back around a few minute later, somebody else at the table had mentioned some of it's merits. In a good-natured way, Irv once again replied, in speaking from his own particular experience, "I'm just telling you what I saw from my own experience.... I'll never be able to forget the site of all that gunk.....phlegm....puss, that we was left over in the vats after the finished/refined milk liquid had been pumped/drained off to some other container". It was at that point that, having had some time to think about it, I asked Irv "well, you worked in that environment, so I'm not trying to convince you that what you saw was not really what you saw, but how do you know that stuff....gunk...that unsigthly stuff you call puss was what you believed it to be? Can you be sure that what you saw was not what friendly bacteria looks like after it's been bludgeonded to death inside a big mechanical vat and then filtered off with some other mechanical device?". Granted, I was just sort of winging it, but after a few minutes to contemplate what Irv had remarked earlier, the first thought that came to my mind was "this is not the first time that I've seen somebody refer to milk as containging puss..... I wonder where this notion comes from?". I can imagine or guess where this notion may have started.... it probably has something to do with the general agenda that was put in operation many years ago to build up the industry & benefits of commercialized, homogenized, pasteurized "milk". I did not speak these thoughts to Irv, but they were in my mind as we talked. I do know that there are other prominent people here at CZ that also promote this notion - that any/all milk is bacteria/disease-laden puss. Anyway, all I said to Irv was the question, mentioned above. If nothing else, it seemed to have given him maybe a little food for thought, because when I asked him, I could sense the gears turning in his mind, almost as if his mind was wondering "hmmmm, gee, I never thought about it like that". He did say that when he was a relative youngster first going to work in the dairy factory, the first time he saw the collection of "stuff".... "puss"...."gunk" left over inside the big milk vat, he wondered what it was, and it was the result of somebody else telling him "lookie here sonny, that there is puss, it's bacteria gunk that is inherent to raw milk"..... and possibly this was just one tiny example of how the "raw milk bad, pasteurized/homogenized milk good!" myth was transferred into yet another mind to be promoted, carried & spread into the public consciousness by way of an otherwise unwitting victim... ."beleiver who saw with his own eyes". Kinda reminds of the old saying "don't believe everything you are told by somebody else, and only HALF of what you think you see with your own eyes!".