elba

Yesterday, for the first time -- believe it or not -- I visited the mucklands. I was back out there today (yes, there's a related story coming). The mucklands are an impressive sight, to say the least, and entirely fascinating, as I have learned over the past 48 hours or so. There are several of these type of old, low-slung barns out there.

An Elba resident is accused of burglarizing an occupied residence at 1:40 a.m. on March 26 and he has been taken into custody.

Charged with burglary, 2nd, and grand larceny, 3rd, is 29-year-old Jon H. Bush Jr., of 7614 Oak Orchard Road, Elba.

Bush was arrested at Batavia City Court when he appeared on an unrelated matter.

Allegedly, Bush made off with a safe containing money and jewelry.

He was jailed on $20,000 bail.

Sean M. Vickers is indicted by the Grand Jury and accused of a course of sexual conduct against a child in the first degree, a Class B felony. He is an adult accused of engaging in two or more acts of sexual conduct, which allegedly included at least one act of deviate sexual intercourse with a child less than 13 years old. The alleged incidents occurred between Nov. 2, 2001 and April 16, 2002.

Joseph E. Marr is indicted by the Grand Jury and accused of driving while intoxicated, as a misdemeanor, and for allegedly driving a motor vehicle on Dec. 14 on Route 5 and/or Keeney Road in Le Roy while under the influence of alcohol. In count two of the indictment, he is accused of having a BAC of .08 or more at the time of the alleged incident. In count three, he is accused of knowingly and unlawfully introducing dangerous contraband into a detention facility or, being a person in jail, knowingly and unlawfully made, obtained or possessed dangerous contraband. In count four, he is accused of driving while impaired by drugs, as a misdemeanor, for allegedly driving a 2001 GMC on Jan. 1 on Route 5 in the Town of Pembroke while impaired by drugs. In counts five and six, respectively, Marr is accused of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree, Class D felonies, for allegedly possessing a "black large capacity ammunition feeding device" as well as another such device that was clear/gray, also on Jan. 1 in the Town of Pembroke.

Carrie A. Stewart is indicted by the Grand Jury and accused of tampering with evidence, a Class E felony, on Nov. 15 in the Town of Alexander. It is alleged that Stewart "believing that certain evidence was about to be produced or used in an official proceeding or a propective official proceeding and intending to prevent such production or use, suppressed it by any act of concealment, alteration or destruction, or by employing force, intimidation or deception against any person." This count stems from Stewart allegedly stealing merchandise from Dollar General and then when confronted by management, "threw the merchandise in the Tonawanda Creek where it was carried away by the current." In count two, the defendant is accused of petit larceny for allegedly stealing five pairs of underwear, a hat, socks, gloves, a wallet, and thermal underwear.

Shannon G. Cook is indicted by the Grand Jury and accused of driving while intoxicated, a Class E felony, for allegedly driving a 2002 Dodge pickup on Jan. 20 on Route 262 while under the influence of alcohol. In count two of the indictment, Cook is accused of having a BAC of .08 or greater at the time of the alleged incident.

Felipe Fernandez, 42, of Borinquen Plaza, Rochester, is charged with aggravated unlicensed operation, 1st , and motor vehicle lights not meeting standards. Fernandez was stopped by Deputy Joseph Corona at 11:48 p.m. Tuesday on Pearl Street Road, Batavia, for an alleged vehicle violation. Fernandez was jailed without bail.

Saul Doynsaday Standsblack, 34, of Parker Road, Basom, was arrested on a bench warrant related to an aggravated unlicensed operation, 3rd, charge. Standsblack was taken into custody on a Batavia City Court warrant following his release from the Erie County Jail on an unrelated matter. Standsblack appeared in City Court, entered a guilty plea, and was sentenced to 15 days in jail.

Michael Thomas Coffey, 44, of South Main Street, Albion, is charged with petit larceny. Coffey was arrested on a warrant out of Town of Elba Court.

Andriana D. Green, 19, of Amherst, is charged with assault, 3rd, and criminal mischief, 4th. Green was arrested Wednesday morning by State Police for an alleged incident reported at 2:14 p.m., Monday, at College Village. No further details released.

While out and about late this afternoon, early evening, working on a future story, I took a few pictures.

Above, Oatka Creek, Village of Le Roy.

State Street, Batavia, near the Thruway overpass.

Watson Road, Elba.

Oak Orchard Road, north of Lanckton Corners (the intersection with North Byron Road), Elba, will be closed for a bridge replacement.

Work begins in the morning.

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Trustee Denis Rohan and Mayor Scott Schuler removed the gateway signs for the Village of Elba this afternoon so they can be given a fresh coat of paint and spruced up a bit.

The big question is what to do with the "Pop.: Just Right" on the sign. Rohen and Schuller said the village might add a motto to the bottom sign. The concern is that "Pop.: Just Right" sends the wrong message, a message that indicates new residents aren't welcome. Rohan said it's important to communicate that everybody is welcome in Elba.

Elba Central School teachers Jeremy Rath and Tammy Plucknette were recognized today in a faculty meeting in the school's cafeteria for their recent accomplishments.

Rath (right in the top photo) has been named an Outstanding Music Teacher by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

Plucknette (second photo) was selected from among 3,000 applicants to be among 200 teachers on the Learnzillion Dream Team.

Learnzillion is developing curricula and material to help teachers implement common core lesson plans as part of new federal guidelines.

She just returned from a four-day trip to San Francisco to learn how to make videos for Learnzillion's Web site.

Rath was selected from among music teachers in nine Western New York counties and will be honored at RPO's concern May 9.

"This means great things for Elba," said Stephanie Rudman (with Rath, top photo), who helped organize the recognition reception. "We're a little school in Genesee County and we have two awesome teachers. It's a small reflection of all the teachers we have in Elba. It's a great school."

Below, Principal Chris Salinas presents the teachers with certificates of appreciation.

An ATV accident as been reported on the old railroad bed near Transit Road, Elba.

The closest street address is 6920 Transit Road. That is between Byron Elba Road and Bridge Road.

A person is injured.

Elba fire and Mercy EMS dispatched.

UPDATE 4:56 p.m.: A chief on scene reports a possible head injury and shoulder injury. Mercy Flight is going on in-air standby.

UPDATE 5 p.m.: Mercy Flight requested to the scene. Fire police requested to close the road.

UPDATE 5:09 p.m.: Byron fire responding mutual aid. Mercy Flight on the ground.

UPDATE 5:23 p.m.: Mercy Flight airborne, in route to Strong.

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Jesse M. Woods, 18, of Lake St., Le Roy, is charged with assault, 2nd. Woods allegedly fought with a person outside a residence on Myrtle Street, Village of Le Roy, and as a result the other person suffered serious injuries. Woods was jailed on $500 bail.

Matthew Brian Starowitz, 24, of Whitney Mill Road, Elba, is charged with criminally using drug paraphernalia, criminal possession of marijuana, 5th, and parking on a highway. Starowitz was allegedly found parked the wrong way on Whitney Mill Road at 3:06 a.m. by Deputy Frank Bordonaro.

Daniel Taylor Manhardt, 20, of Hopkins Road, Corfu, is charged with unlawful possession of marijuana. Manhardt's vehicle was stopped for alleged equipment violations at 2:01 a.m. Thursday on Cleveland Road, Pembroke, by Deputy Joseph Corona.

Elba's senior class was given a dramatic look at what it's like at a fatal crash scene during the Elba Volunteer Fire Department's annual prom night exercise at the school.

The scenario involved a youth accused of drinking and driving becoming involved in an accident in which his passenger was seriously injured and the driver of the other vehicle was pronounced dead at the scene.

Cindy Morgan played the mother of the fatal victim who wouldn't accept that her daughter was dead. Above she has uncovered her daughter's body and is yelling for medics to give her CPR.

Anna Dorman played the part of the dead teenager. Her passenger was Missy Engel.

The DWI driver was played by Aaron Dart and his passenger -- who was loaded into a waiting Mercy Flight helicopter and considered seriously injured -- was Austin Hynesfisher.

Austin's father, Steven Hynesfisher, explained to the students each step of the process at the accident scene. 

Coroner Barry Miller and Deputy Chris Parker were also on scene.

Driving down Bridge Road in Elba this afternoon, I see some strange looking birds near the edge of the roadway. I naturally stop to take pictures.

While stopped, I meet George Morgan, the owner of the birds. He tells me they're guinea hens, native to Africa. He also shows me his peacock (bottom photo).

Morgan said he's owned guinea hens for 30 years.

"They're just a riot," he said. "They're lots of fun. They chase each other. They play tag. I always enjoy a good laugh."

The Elba Volunteer Fire Department was among the local departments holding open houses today, both to let the community learn more about the departments and to recruit more volunteers.

To find out more about becoming a volunteer, visit ReadyGenesee.com.

I'm seeing quite a few anti-Cuomo, anti-SAFE Act signs around Genesee County this spring. This one is in Elba.

Note: This is intended to be the first in a series of stories we'll do this spring and summer on the farms and farmers of Genesee County.

People worry about family farmers, but for the Posts of Elba, they're doing just fine.

With Jeff Post as a fifth-generation farmer, sharing ownership with his father, Dan, and uncle, John, Post Farms continues to grow, innovate and prosper.

"I think it's very impressive that our family has been farming as long as it has and stayed in business that long and been successful that long," Jeff said. "I take a lot of pride in being the fifth generation. I go to meetings and I hear guys say, 'I'm third generation,' and I think, 'that's nothing.' "

Jeff's great-great-grandfather bought the 100 acres that became Post Farms in 1890. There was a barn, a house and some cows to start with, and each generation has added on.

Today, Post Farms is a modern dairy with 350 cows and a robotic milking parlor that keeps milk flowing daily to the Upstate Farms Cooperative.

To support the dairy operation, the Posts manage 750 acres (some of it leased) and grow oats, wheat, corn, alfalfa and a hybrid grain known as triticale, primarily as feed for the cattle.

The day we visited, Dan Post and his dad, Ken, where prepping fields and sowing seeds for oats. John said the goal is to get the oats harvested this year in time to sow green beans, which will be sold later in the year for canning.

With Jeff's aunt, Laurie, also working on the farm -- there are also two hired hands -- the Posts have pretty much kept farming all in the family.

Dan said when Jeff was in high school, there was little indication he would want to be a farmer.

"He never seemed that interested and I never pushed him," Dan said. "In high school he was talking about going into the landscaping business, but when it came time to go to college, he said he was going to study ag and I was pleasantly surprised."

Jeff got his degree in animal science from Cornell in 2001 and then spent the next eight years working on other farms, learning the business.

By 2008, the family wanted him back on the Post Farms and so he returned home and now, at age 34, is herd manager. John, 61, handles crops and Dan, 60, and Ken work the fields. Laurie takes care of the calves.

Ken, at 86, said he still likes to be outside on a tractor, working.

"I'll probably never stop until I have to," Ken said. "I have to keep doing something. I can't just sit around doing nothing."

There isn't much time for doing nothing on Post Farms and Jeff said there is nothing written in stone about the division of labor.

"We all have to do a little of everything because there aren't that many of us," Jeff said.

Officially, the farm is owned by Jeff, Dan and John.

The last big expansion of the farm came in 1987, when Post Farms went from 180 cows to 230. It's grown slowly since then to 240 to 250 range.

In 2010, the Posts built a new milking parlor that features four robotic milking stalls.

Cows in the robot barn are milked three times a day with very little farmer intervention.

Because the feed in the the stalls don't have all the nutrients the cows need, the cows instinctively and by habit seek out the more nutritious feed in the milking stalls. 

A cow walks into the stall, the robot reads the cow's ID number to ensure it's time for it to be milked, and then a laser guides the milking apparatus to the utters. While the cow is milked, it munches on some tasty and nutrious feed.

"It's really being fed, and we're just milking it at the same time," Jeff said.

Only occasionally does a person need to come in and ease a cow into line to be milked. The cows pretty much take care of getting themselves fed and milked.

It's notable how friendly and curious Post cows are. Rather than shy away from a stranger with a camera, they try to move in closer for a better look.

Jeff thinks that's because with their milking operation there aren't people constantly pushing them around to go here or there.

Laurie thinks it's because Post cows get a lot of human interaction. They're just used to being around people.

From birth, the cows are kept in a nursery rather than individual outdoor shelters and are visited regularly by Laurie and other members of the family to make sure they're drinking their milk and are generally in good health (milk is dispensed for the calves from boxes with nipples in each of the nursery's stalls).

Besides providing the cows with a seemingly less stressful living environment, the robotic barn has helped the Posts keep to a minimum the number of hired hands the farm needs, Jeff said.

While more employees means more expense and more managerial headaches, a bigger issue, Jeff said, is immigration.

Jeff is currently president for the Genesee County Farm Bureau and immigration is a big issue for all farmers he said.

"You really never really know where your labor is going to come from," he said.

As Farm Bureau president, Jeff said the other big issues farmers face is the encroachment of development.

Housing is replacing more and more farms, and people moving closer to farms is creating its own set of issues.

"That's one of the biggest problems," Jeff said. "There's more people living in the country, and there's more people living in the country who didn't grow up around the sights and sounds and smells of farming."

Jeff doesn't expect New York's booming yogurt industry to have that big of an impact on dairy farms. The price of milk is heavily regulated and there are a lot of hurdles for dairy farmers to clear to increase production.

There's an assumption in media reports that changes in federal regulations will make it easier for dairy farmers to increase the size of their herds, but the fact is, Jeff said, there are 100 other other considerations involved in herd size.

The regulation change, he said, really just highlights the arbitrary nature of the regulation. The regulation is known as CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation). Strict and expensive CAFO requirements used to kick in at 200 animals, but to help dairy farmers during the yogurt boom, the limit was raised to 300 head of cattle.

"Personally," Jeff said, "I think that the whole thing is wrong. The government is basically saying it's an arbitrary number because they can change it at will. They said they think farmers should grow, so we're going to move back the number. That number doesn't mean anything. The whole thing, for lack of a better term, is a government shake down. Not every farmer that runs a small farm that is not meeting CAFO is going to go out and add another 100 cows because there are another 100 factors that play into (adding more cows)."

One of the biggest events in the history of Post Farms was a fire in August 2011 that destroyed the barn that was on the property when Jeff's great-great-grandfather purchased it in 1890.

Losing that barn was emotionally upsetting for the family, both Jeff and John said, but it's actually helped improve operations on the farm.

"You hate to see an old barn go because of tradition and all that, but the new barns serve us better," John said.

Jeff agreed, but he liked that old barn.

"You want to think of the family farm, driving up and seeing that barn," Jeff said. "That is the vision all of us have of this farm -- seeing that barn there because that is what people think of when they think of a family farm, that kind of barn sitting there."

The barn is gone, but it the new barn helps symbolize the progress and growth of Post Farms, Jeff said. The Posts are never afraid to try new things, even something Ken Post confirmed.

"We're not stuck in the old ways," Jeff said. "We're doing things that are efficient for us and make for a good life, a happy life."

Top Photo: Front row, Dan, John and Ken; and, Laurie and Jeff.

Joshua Tyler Gilbert, 20, of Lewiston Road, Batavia, is charged with disorderly conduct.  Gilbert was stopped at 8:20 p.m. Saturday on Route 77, Darien, by Deputy Joseph Corona for allegedly speeding. During the traffic stop, a warrant for Gilbert's arrest was discovered and he was taken into custody. Bail was set at $100.

Joseph Carl Jeffords, 22, of West Main Street, Le Roy, is charged with criminal impersonation, 2nd. Jeffords was reportedly the driver of a vehicle stopped at 11:24 p.m. Saturday on West Main Street Road, Batavia. Jeffords allegedly gave Deputy Patrick Reeves a false name during the traffic stop. Jeffords allegedly was driving without a valid NYS drivers license and has three suspensions. Jeffords was jailed on $1,000 bail.

Patrick Daniel Moore, 35, of Stouts Road, Elba, is charged with promoting prison contraband, 2nd. Moore allegedly possessed tobacco while confined at the Genesee County Jail.

Alexander Phillip Browne, 28, of Lake to Lake Road, Stanley, is charged with DWI, driving with a BAC of .08 or greater, speeding and refused pre-screen device. Browne was stopped at 12:46 a.m. Sunday on Route 5, Batavia, by Sgt. Thomas Sanfratello.

Richard Thomas Cooke, 44, of Hedley Street, Medina, is charged with petit larceny. Cooke is accused of stealing scrap from a location on West Main Street Road, Batavia. The property owner reportedly confronted Cooke. The suspect allegedly fled the scene in his pickup truck. Cooke was located later at his residence in Medina and taken into custody.

Two 17-year-old Batavia residents are charged with unlawful possession of marijuana. The two teens were located in a vehicle behind a shopping plaza on West Main Street, Batavia, by members of the Local Drug Task Force. A quantity of marijuana was allegedly spotted in the lap of one of the teens. Upon further investigation more marijuana was allegedly located in the vehicle.

Lisa Marie Harlach, 44, of Kelsey Road, lower, Batavia, is charged with harassment, 2nd. Harlach was arrested on a warrant for allegedly making verbal threats to kill or harm another person by use of a firearm.

Michael J. Penvose, 33, of 27 E. Main St., Le Roy, is charged with petit larceny. Penvose is accused of shoplifting from a business on West Avenue, Le Roy.

Hannah Marie Traub, 30, of West Kendall Road, Kendall, is charged with petit larceny. Traub is accused of stealing metal snow fence posts that are owned by the Oakfield Highway Department from a location on Lewiston Road, Oakfield.

Justin Terrance Lee Abbott, 23, of Denrose Drive, Amherst, and Michael T. Robb, 21, of Condon Avenue, Buffalo, are charged with unlawful possession of marijuana. Abbott and Robb were in a vehicle stopped for an alleged traffic violation on Quaker Hill Road, Elba, at 1:11 a.m. Wednesday by Deputy James Diehl. Abbott was issued an appearance ticket and Robb was turned over to North Tonawanda PD on an arrest warrant.

Tresia DonMarie Brace, 19, of Crimson Heights Street, Albion, is charged with petit larceny. Brace is accused of shoplifting at Kmart. Brace allegedly fled from store security after being confronted and was later located at Subway.

Terryl Kiev Coombs, 21, and Donte Angel Meredith, 22, both of Oak Street, Batavia, are charged with petit larceny. Coombs and Meredith are accused of stealing $180 in DVDs from Walmart.