Welcome to Call to Decision 

Dear Members,
This is an email from Maureen Diaz, WAPF Chapter Leader:

"I just arrived home after going by the Nolt farm. Mark had arrived
home, mostly on foot, from his temporary imprisonment. He had refused a
ride home from the constable, which is understandable, and he wanted to
think along the way.

He said he felt that the motive for his arrest, he felt, was
primarily to keep him away from the farm while the authorities again
raided it. They did try to get him to plead guilty to the same
charges they had try to force on him last fall, but he refused.

Can you imagine the picture of a quiet, composed, Old Order Mennonite
farmer being hauled away in handcuffs in the back seat of a police
cruiser? Absurd picture, but we will never see it as this was a total
surprise and they sealed off the lane to the farm, not allowing anyone
access.

Even more absurd is the image of Mark, locked in a holding cell,
handcuffed and chained to the wall!

All for the crime of selling raw milk & cheese, and without a license!

Lest one think, "Why not just get a raw milk permit since Pa. allows
them?", consider that in recent weeks 4 permitted raw milk dairies have
been closed down under the false pretense of contamination! One farm
just happened to have 2 other techs there at the time of their surprise
inspection, both of which were taking samples to detect possible
pathogens. The state came up with a number 900,000 times higher than the
independent labs!!! I don't recall whether this was salmonella or listeria (I
think the latter), but the point remains the same either way. Further
more, there are no reported illnesses from any of the farms!

It remains to be seen what is going to happen here, but as we all can
see, things are heating up. And, the Nolts have, for the second time in
about 9 months, had their inventory of cheese and (bottled) milk
stolen. Interestingly, one of the officials also walked off with a copy of
Joel Salantin's, "Everything I Want to Do is Illegal"!

Mark & Maryanne are determined to carry on-they will not be stopped!

How courageous this family is. The whole family is behind this
decision, and I've no doubt, they will continue working to provide excellent
foods for their customers (the customer book was able to be hidden away
during the raid :-) until "they" come and take away the farm."