Quail Farm
Posted on 03/15/2012 4:06:09 PM PDT by Sopater
Quail Farm
The evening was everything I had dreamed and hoped it would be. The weather was perfect, the farm was filled with friends and guests roaming around talking about organic, sustainable farming practices. Our guests were excited to spend an evening together. The food was prepared exquisitely. The long dinner table, under the direction of dear friends, was absolutely stunningly beautiful. The music was superb. The stars were bright and life was really good. And then, …for a few moments, it felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath us and my wonderful world came crashing down. As guests were mingling, finishing tours of the farm, and while the first course of the meal was being prepared and ready to be sent out, a Southern Nevada Health District employee came for an inspection.
Community Dinner at Quail Farm
Because this was a gathering of people invited to our farm for dinner, I had no idea that the Health Department would become involved. I received a phone call from them two days before the event informing me that because this was a “public event” (I would like to know what is the definition of “public” and “private”) we would be required to apply for a “special use permit.” If we did not do so immediately, we would be charged a ridiculous fine. Stunned, we immediately complied.
We were in the middle of our harvest day for our CSA shares, a very busy time for us, but Monte immediately left to comply with the demand and filled out the required paper work and paid for the fee. (Did I mention that we live in Overton, nowhere near a Health Department office?) Paper work now in order, he was informed that we would not actually be given the permit until an inspector came to check it all out. She came literally while our guests were arriving! In order to overcome any trouble with the Health Department of cooking on the premises, most of the food was prepared in a certified kitchen in Las Vegas; and to further remove any doubt, we rented a certified kitchen trailer to be here on the farm for the preparation of the meals.
The inspector, Mary Oaks, clearly not the one in charge of the inspection as she was constantly on the phone with her superior Susan somebody who was calling all the shots from who knows where.
EH Specialist II Mary Oakes
At this time Monte, trying to reason with Susan to find a possible solution for the problem, suggested turning this event from a “public” event to a “private” event by allowing the guests to become part of our farm club, thus eliminating any jurisdiction or responsibility on their part. This idea infuriated Susan and threatened that if we did not comply the police would be called and personally escort our guests off the property. This is not the vision of the evening we had in mind! So regretfully, again we complied.
Bleach is poured on organic food
I can’t tell you how sick to my stomach I was watching that first dish of Mint Lamb Meatballs hit the bottom of the unsanitized trash can. Here we were with guests who had paid in advance and had come from long distances away anticipating a wonderful dining experience, waiting for dinner while we were behind the kitchen curtain throwing it away! I know of the hours and labor that went into the preparation of that food. We asked the inspector if we could save the food for a private family event that we were having the next day. (A personal family choice to use our own food.) We were denied and she was insulted that we would even consider endangering our families health. I assured her that I had complete faith and trust in Giovanni our chef and the food that was prepared, (obviously, or I wouldn’t be wanting to serve it to our guests).
Farm food is destroyed
I then asked if we couldn’t feed the food to our “public guests” or even to our private family, then at least let us feed it to our pigs. (I think it should be a criminal action to waste any resource of the land. Being dedicated to our organic farm, we are forever looking for good inputs into our compost and soil and good food that can be fed to our animals. The animals and compost pile always get our left over garden surplus and food. We truly are trying to be as sustainable as possible.) Again, a call to Susan and another negative response. Okay, so let me get this right. So the food that was raised here on our farm and selected and gathered from familiar local sources, cooked and prepared with skill and love was even unfit to feed to my pigs!?! Who gave them the right to tell me what I feed my animals? Not only were we denied the use of the food for any purpose, to ensure that it truly was unfit for feed of any kind we were again threatened with police action if we did not only throw the food in the trash, but then to add insult to injury, we were ordered to pour bleach on it.
Food Lined up to Be Destroyed by Health Department
Now the food is also unfit for compost as I would be negligent to allow any little critters to nibble on it while it was composting and ingest that bleach resulting in a horrible death. Literally hundreds of pounds of food was good for nothing but adding to our ever increasing land fill! At some point in all of this turmoil Monte reminded me that I had the emergency phone number for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) on our refrigerator. I put it there never really believing that I would ever have to use it. We became members of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund several years ago as a protection for us, but mostly to add support to other farmers battling against the oppressive legal actions taken against the small farmers trying to produce good wholesome food without government intrusion. The local, sustainable food battle is being waged all across America! May I mention that not one battle has been brought on because of any illness to the patrons of these farms! The battles are started by government officials swooping down on farms and farmers like SWAT teams confiscating not only the wholesome food items produced but even their farm equipment! Some of them actually wearing HAZMAT suits as if they were walking into a nuclear meltdown! I have personally listened to some of their heart wrenching stories and have continued to follow them through the FTCLDF’s updates.
LOL.
Reallly?? This is the state that keeps the brain-dead Harry Reid in office term after term. Is there any free state left in our UNION?
Well, now that you mention it... considering that during my 6 tours in Korea, I’ve had dog at the local restaurant...
:-P
(I didn’t worry about whose dog it was.)
Ya know, as soon as I saw the stuff about pure organic farming I began to wonder if this was a cat fight between lefties. Now the wonder is turning into something more like certitude. What a wasteful shame of course (even lefties need to eat) but maybe they’ll get a lesson in (figurative) karma?
Still, this was about pet bunnies, not food farmed ones? It sounds like excess.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
The trick was to get them to pull the permit which undoubtedly gave carte blanche permission to the thugs to come onto the property without further notice. We’d visit you on weekends, though.
You are probably thinking of the land owning peasants called "Kulaks" in the Ukraine. It's doubtful any of them were busted for running a commercial operation organic farm catering to what are probably a bunch of greener-than-thou Liberals. All their food, including what they needed to feed themselves and their families, was confiscated and any who resisted were summarily killed or sent to Siberia to die. Those who did not resist simply starved to death. The Soviets gave quotas to the forces sent of the tonnage of food to be confiscated and numbers of Kulaks to be liquidated and detailed records were kept. They murdered millions.
No, Stalin took the food (for the public good) and let the farmers starve (in the Ukraine).
The place checks out--it has a web site and is apparently located near Logandale, Nevada. However, no such event appears on the site's calendar over the past few months, so it must not have been recent. I noticed that the site emphasizes that future events of this sort are private.
If I were the owner, I would find a good junkyard-dog tort lawyer--there should be plenty of them in Las Vegas--and go after those busybody munchkins.
I appreciate those who dug up the date and location of the incident. Shouldn’t the author have included these details in the article? Has anyone been able to determine who the author of this article is? When you post an emotional article, the least you should do is attach your name to it if you don’t want it classified as SPAM.
Whenever I see “Comments are closed.” I get suspicious as to why the article is still up on the website. By closing the comments you are no longer under obligation to reply to the readers. OK, that’s fine with me, but why in the hell did you write the article if you don’t want to answer the questions of the readers?
These people are professional heart wrenchers. Top level marketers, IMO. Fertilizer spreaders. I am not saying this is incident is falsified manure, just the manner in which it was presented.
/bingo
Of course, with cameras being everywhere, every move, every word she said, should have been recorded, because inspectors frequently talk out of their ass. A crazy otherwise-unemployable asshole who used to inspect food service businesses over where I grew up used to go completely haywire once every couple of years; all it took was a hearing, after a little bit of research, to show that all or most of his references to the codes were inappropriate, incoherent, or just head-up-the-ass stupid.
WADR, and I hate to sound callous and cruel, but these people strike me as a bunch of tofu sucking, sprout munching pantywaists, every one of whom, to a man, or woman, voted unanimously for Zero, swooning over the concept of “Hope and Change.”
We-e-e-e-el, they GOT Zero, and his brand of H & C, and a tidal wave of jackbooted bureaucrats to take over their lives. So now they ruined your garden party and destroyed your food, did they? To quote a line from the song “Bloody Mary” in the film SOUTH PACIFIC, “Now ain’t that too damn bad?!”
It's written in first person, so one can conclude it is either Monte or Laura Bledsoe. -- I am not saying this is incident is falsified manure, just the manner in which it was presented. --
The story has been presented in more than one venue. Not to defend "A Distinctive Style Magazine," but the only "beg" I read in the article is to sign a petition.
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/quail-hollow-farm-dinner-usa.htm
Farm-to-table event turns sour when health inspector crashes party (read the comments)
Here's another, by the Bledsoes. Perhaps it meets your standards: Straight From the Farmers' Heart at Quail Hollow.
The health department here has earned more than the amount of ridicule it is getting.
Perhaps the time has come to start microwaving bureaucrats...
Then they, would for sure, be OK for consumption.
January edition of the Limbaugh Letter has an article about Quail Hollow Farm fighting Big Farm Government Entitled: No Picnic
She shoulda talked to a chemist. Sodium hypochlorite is unstable on exposure to sunlight and to air. Just leave the veggies in the sun for a day or so, and they'd be perfectly safe to compost. Or just rinse'em off with a hose.
But this most definitely was a case of an out-of-control bureaucrat responding to the pulls of "somebody's" strings.
This time it wasn't federal food enforcers. It was one of the local jackboots.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.