Super Bowl projected to generate super spending

As the New York Giants and New England Patriots battle on the field during Super Bowl XLVI today, game-related consumer spending is projected to reach an all-time high.

Total Super Bowl-related revenues are predicted to reach $11 billion, according to a survey by the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association conducted by BIGinsight. The average game-watcher is expected to shell out $63.87 on related merchandise, apparel and snacks, up from $59.33 last year, according to the survey. A whopping 71.3 percent of that will be on beverages and food, especially items like chicken wings, pizza and dip.

Those kinds of numbers are an appetizing thought to Middletown and Hamilton business owners.

Kim Snider of Wings on Brookwood, 147 N. Brookwood Ave. in Hamilton, said her family-owned business generates approximately three times the amount of revenue on Super Bowl Sunday than it does on a typical Sunday.

“Wings and football have always been a tradition,” she said. “(Super Bowl Sunday) is, by far, our busiest day of the year. We go through about 16,000 wings and probably about 8,000 boneless wings.”

The restaurant, which offered Facebook fans discounts for pre-sale orders, started taking reservations for pickup times on Sunday a week in advance. This week, customers have “inundated” Wings on Brookwood with not only more orders than in recent years, but also more wings per order as well, Snider said.

National Restaurant Association research shows that chicken wings (63 percent) now outpace pizza (61 percent) as a game-day “must-have.” However, dips or spread, garnered the top spot with 69 percent of votes from famished fans.

Super Bowl Sunday at Fricker’s in Middletown means a 40 percent to 60 percent boost in carry-out sales revenues, said spokesman Jim Manley.

“Nobody calls for orders of 10 (wings) for the Super Bowl,” Manley said.

“They all call for orders of 200 to 500 and that’s why the number is so exorbitant, because they have a number of folks over to their house and at that point they’re just trying to feed the world and we’re very fortunate to be a beneficiary.”

The restaurant, however, does not see as much walk-up traffic because most people are attending Super Bowl parties, Manley said. “With that, it’s about the same amount of food as we would normally do, it just doesn’t get eaten in our restaurant,” he said.

To accommodate the droves of customers who flock to the restaurant for its Frickin’ Chicken Wings, Fricker’s must book time for its fryers, reserve a portion of them for last-minute orders and create a waiting area for pick-up orders, Manley said.

Nick Dadabo, owner of Chester’s Pizza in Hamilton, said the although his store no longer delivers, business increases by 30 to 40 percent on Super Bowl Sunday compared to a typical Sunday.

Dadabo said he expects that much of an increase, if not more, this Sunday, in part because of special prices on pizza, sandwiches and chicken wings, and the “independent bump” local places receive from big-name pizza establishment advertising that he said get customers “thinking pizza.”

But the decisive factor in any surge in sales boils down to customers avoiding economic “gloom and doom” by immersing themselves in the Super Bowl, he said.

“I think people are trying to find a way to satisfy themselves and maybe escape a little bit from the reality that we’re going through a pretty tough time,” Dadabo said.

Although wholesale chicken prices notoriously go up around Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and the Super Bowl, prices have flown the coop over during the past year, Snider said, a fact of life that may peck into profit margins.

“This is the first year I’ve watched it double,” Snider said. However, “We’ve not changed our prices. We’ve not changed anything.”

The price hikes have continued as sales for fresh chicken breasts, the highest priced meat, have plummeted, Snider said. “That determines how much they (suppliers) are going to charge for the wings,” she said. “They need to make up their money on the wings and we don’t have a choice. It is what it is.”

Mohnton youth's rooster a big winner at Farm Show

Will Kitsch, a sixth grader at Governor Mifflin Intermediate School, didn’t grow up on a farm, but when his preschool class visited one, he says he was the only one who wanted to go into the chicken coop to collect the eggs.

That same year his parents, Bill and Christine Kitsch, sent away for about a dozen chicks from a hatchery. Will learned how to take care of them and eventually decided he wanted to join 4-H and begin showing his chickens. Unfortunately, he found out that his chickens were not show quality. After picking out a few breeds that he liked, they found a local breeder – one in Grantville continues to be Will’s mentor – who did offer show-quality chickens.

After that, Will began hatching his own chicks and even raising a few that were destined for his family’s kitchen table. Christine said they had a lot of talks with Will and his siblings about raising chickens for meat. They knew from the start that those chickens were not to be named and that they would have a short life. Today Will has 30-40 chickens in his backyard (just a little over an acre) in Mohnton.

Every morning Will gets up before school to feed and water the chickens. Then after school he goes out and does it all again. On really cold nights he has to bring their water in, so it doesn’t freeze. And, ofcourse, he has to collect the eggs, usually twice a day. Some eggs are set aside for hatching and others are eaten .

Four years ago Will began showing his chickens at the Pennsylvania Farm Show. This year he won his biggest award ever when his two-year-old rooster, Tiger, won Reserve Grand Champion Large Chicken. Will has had Tiger since he was a chick and Tiger’s son, who Will hatched himself, also showed well this year.

To prepare Tiger and the 28 other chickens he took to the show, Will trimmed their toe nails, washed them, and put “stuff” on their combs and feathers to make them glossy. Will says that they needed to be very clean.

About a year ago, Will brought two ducks home for his nine-year-old brother, Gabriel, who has always loved ducks. One of them got away, so they bought ten eggs for Gabriel. Six eggs hatched – all girls. Today Gabriel has a flock of ducks, which he says are easier to take care of than the chickens. He entered three of them – Sonic, Tittlewinks, and Rosie – into the competition at the farm show and won several awards in the Bantam Duck Class.

Christine says that raising chickens and ducks has taught the boys responsibility, compassion, and care. She says when you domesticate an animal and put it in a cage, it’s completely dependent on you for its care. It never takes a day off or goes on vacation. No matter what the weather, it’s your responsibility to care for the well-being of that living creature.

She says the boys are also learning about financial responsibility. They’ve sold some of their chickens and they’ve sold chicken and duck meat to their friends and family. They’re also learning about where their food comes from, and they’re doing hands-on projects. This year they’re planning on re-doing the front of the coop.

Ioby Partners with Deutsche Bank to Fund Projects

CDCs, non-profit organizations commissioned to provide services or programs in a certain geographic location, are a particularly good way for ioby to deepen its focus on local solutions to environmental problems in communities. “Any New Yorker can post their project on ioby, but we have a special interest in supporting the ideas and initiatives of New Yorkers in neighborhoods that have a greater burden of environmental problems and fewer resources to address them,” says Erin Barnes, executive director and co-founder of ioby, in a press release about the partnership with Deutsche Bank.

“This partnership came about through conversations with Deutsche Bank about how our mass campaigns were working for us. Deutsche Bank has long been dedicated to working with CDCs. When I was saying to Sam Marks, the program officer we work with at Deutsche Bank, how match campaigns work with ioby, he immediately drew the conclusion that [we could work with] CDCs, since their target focus is the neighborhood level, and that would be a perfect opportunity for ioby to improve its reach,” Barnes, told Dowser.

“CDCs bring a comprehensive point of view to neighborhood development, and in many neighborhoods, they are playing a leading role engaging their constituents in local environmental issues,” said Marks, the Vice President, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, in ioby’s press release.  “We were compelled by the notion that ioby could provide a platform to allow CDCs to take advantage of grassroots crowd-resourcing for block-level sustainability projects aligned with their broader community visions.”

Two innovative projects will lead off the match campaign. The Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation (CHLDC) is working on raising $5,940 for an urban farm in the low-income East New York/Cypress Hills neighborhood of Brooklyn. The project, Pollos Del Pueblo, will transform an unused, city-owned vacant lot into a resource for the community, by installing a chicken coop, a chicken run, a storage shed, and a community compost station.

“East New York/Cypress Hills is a food desert. Fresh, nutritious food is hard, if not impossible to come by out here. The result is a devastating health crisis where a third of adults are obese and 19% have diabetes. Additionally, more than half of residents live below the poverty line, unemployment is a high 19% and more than 80% of students qualify for free lunch,” said Betsy MacLean, Director of Community Development, Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation.

“This project and grassroots fundraising campaign offer the opportunity to take a real blight on the community – one of many vacant, overgrown lots – and transform it into a site for exciting, important community building and expanded access to fresh food – including organic eggs.” added MacLean.

The second pilot project will be a partnership between Living City Block Gowanus and the Gowanus Community Development Corporation. The Gowanus neighborhood is the site of the Gowanus Canal, which was declared a polluted and hazardous Superfund site in 2010. These groups will together host a series of design charettes and contests, with the goal of creating the best wayfinding signs for visitors and residents of the Gowanus neighborhood. “The signs will lead pedestrians, cyclists and car traffic to various green infrastructure sites in the area, such as bike racks, solar panels, bioswales and micro-wind turbines,” according to ioby’s press release.

“Gowanus has a special culture of its own, and the community should play a role in creating and designating the interest spots of the neighborhood,” said Llewelyn Wells, president and founder, Living City Block. “Since the entire process of the project is about citizen engagement, the fundraising for it will be, too.”

ioby’s crowdfunding efforts so far fully funding nearly 100 projects in all five boroughs of New York City through small, individual donations. The average donation is $35 and the average project budget is $1,200.

“The Obama campaign in 2008 helped people see how they could fund the things they believed in by pooling large numbers of small donations. Typically the wealthy gave charity--now people can support change in the very neighborhoods they live in. It shifts the ideology from hand-outs to community engagement,” said Barnes. Most ioby micro-donors live within two miles of the project they are supporting, which helps foster a local sense of community and responsibility.

“After finding matching campaigns to be a very effective way for us to support the work of ioby’s project leaders, we couldn’t be happier about this initiative,” said Brandon Whitney, COO and co-founder of ioby, in the press release. “Matches embolden project leaders and micro-donors alike.”

Time actually does move slower in Wet Mountain Valley

New Years was spent visiting the family ranch of my son-in-law Cody in the Westcliffe/Silver Cliff area, which is located in Wet Mountain Valley between the spectacularly scenic Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the west and the Wet Mountains to the east.

Cody told us that time moves slower in the valley. Can't be, as physics teaches that time travels at the same pace everywhere and anything else is merely a perception. Still, when we first entered the ranch house, I had the sense we were visiting a place that time had long since flowed around and I found myself awash in memories of days spent on my grandparents' farm as a child.

While the house was not lacking in modern conveniences, the furnishings left one with a sense of practicality. Unlike many urban residences, nearly everything had a use. This was true of the property, sporting an earthen cold cellar, chicken coop, tool and work shed, bunk house, clotheslines, barn and oversized garden. All features long lost in the city setting.

Our bedroom was one of three attic-style rooms at the end of a steep, narrow stairway no longer found in modern houses. The bedroom, like the rest of the house, was obviously added on to meet the needs of a growing ranch family. This house, like many older ranch houses, started as a single room, steadily growing via add-ons over the years.

The sun shining through our window woke us to a blustery day. Our view of the lofty mountain peaks showed large snow clouds, an indication that the day's winds were not isolated to the valley floor.

During breakfast preparations, the high winds knocked down several power poles, leaving us without lights, water (wells run on pumps) and a slowly cooling house, as power was needed for the wood pellet stove. So we headed to town for a visit while waiting for Cody's uncle to call when the power was back.

Turns out we spent most of the day visiting nearly every open store, having a leisurely lunch and ultimately spending the afternoon at a bar nursing drinks and whiling away time playing the dice game Farkle. While we waited, we never stressed over the power outage, as indeed time seemed to move at a much different pace that day.

Originally, we'd planned on fishing Saturday, but the strong, icy winds cutting through us every time we stepped outside quickly killed the urge to be on the ice. We decided to wait until New Year's Day in the hopes of a calmer day.

Sunday was perfect weather for a day on the ice - sunny, clear and calm. Operating on "mountain time," after a leisurely breakfast, Cody and I made our way to the reservoir where we found a thick icecap that was responding noisily to the prior night's cold. Growing ice is a lot like rice cereal after adding milk; it snaps, crackles and pops.

Our first hole revealed more than 12 inches of clear, hard ice, which was plenty to bear our weight. But I'll be the first to admit to a strong desire to run for shore as a new crack formed near us accompanied by a loud crackle. Surprisingly, as nerve-wracking as the ice was to us, it didn't seem to bother the fish, as we managed several nice rainbows over the course of the next few hours.

As the afternoon sun settled over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, we sadly called it a day. It was time to head to the ranch, pack and go back to a world where time travels at its normal helter-skelter pace.

Newport Beach squawks about man's chicken flock

As Michael Resk moves around his Spanish-style home in Corona del Mar, small bobbing heads mirror his actions, following him to the front gate, backyard and alley.

And in his Goldenrod Avenue yard, the six members of his feathered flock — nicknamed the Goldenrod 6 — cluck, peck at the grass and dig holes in search of bugs.

Resk has owned the chickens for 16 months, but he's run afoul of Newport Beach city ordinances that prohibit owning poultry. But it's all a semantic mix-up, Resk says, because his birds aren't for meat or eggs; they're largely ornamental.

His chickens — Red, Blackie, Flaty, Tiny, Blondie and Whitey — are the manifestation of an idea he had while sitting in his yard thinking chickens would be a nice decorative addition. But after a neighbor complained to the city, Resk was given two weeks to remove the birds. The deadline is imminent.

Newport Beach's law, enacted in 1970, prohibits owning any animal commonly considered livestock within city limits, with a few exceptions in permitted areas. Resk said he's prepared to pay fines.

Resk and the Goldenrod 6 have become a fixture for neighbors on a run, nannies and their charges, and passersby.

Susan Jent, a nanny who was watching over Matea and Madalyn one recent afternoon, said they often come by to see the birds. "We always walk past here and look for ... the chickens," Jent said, as the girls stood along the fence greeting the birds. "It's the highlight of the walk."

Lorenza Robbins said her 4-year-old autistic daughter, Summer, visits the chickens daily, feeds them and dances with them during her visits.

For Summer, whose condition makes communication difficult, one of her first words was "chicken," her mother said. Summer "just lights up when she sees the chickens," Robbins said. "She loves them. For some reason, she connects with them."

Resk is one of many Orange County residents who have begun to raise chickens, according to Margaret Millspaugh, owner of Wagon Train Feed & Tack in Orange. She's known to many as the Chicken Lady of Orange County.

Millspaugh said she used to sell about 25 chickens a week, but recently her business has been booming, with 40 chicken sales a week. She said her clients come from across the county.

She said she knows many cities have relaxed their ordinances and permit chickens as pets, while some chicken owners may slip under the radar.

"A lot [more] people get away with owning chickens than we know about," Millspaugh said. She added that chickens like to live in even-numbered groups. "I try to do even numbers — no odd man out."

Huntington Beach allows six chickens per residence or 24 chicks younger than 8 weeks, provided they stay 25 feet away from other buildings. Irvine allows four chickens as long as they remain 30 feet from any home with certain zoning restrictions. Laguna Beach also allows residents to own chickens, provided that the birds don't run free and are housed in a sanitary coop.

Resk said he hasn't seen a snail, termite or spider since bringing his chickens home — but he also hasn't seen much of his tomato plants recently. He had to replace his corn and broccoli with citrus plants, which are less tasty to his flock.

Resk said he thinks he's dealing with an outdated law and believes his Goldenrod 6 contribute color to the community.

"I think this is just an old law," he said.

"I think it adds a lot more than it detracts."

Clinging to hardscrabble dreams in Mississippi

If it had not caught the attention of a handful of important readers, Jesmyn Ward’s “Salvage the Bones” would most likely have quietly faded into obscurity; many worthy books do. Now, however, this novel about a poor Mississippi family in the weeks leading up to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina has a prominent place in bookstores and boasts the gold medallion that comes with winning the 2011 National Book Award.

Book awards are marvelously idiosyncratic. While major film and music awards are based on the votes of a large group — meaning there is a general consensus or popularity — book awards are frequently selected by just a few people. In the case of the National Book Awards, five judges read 315 fiction submissions in a small window of time and choose their favorite. The result, this year, was that an under-the-radar second novel rose to the top of the pack.

“Salvage the Bones” is an intense book, with powerful, direct prose that dips into poetic metaphor. It’s told by a teenage girl, Esch, whose late-summer thoughts turn to Greek myths and her neglectful lover, Manny. “I imagine this is the way Medea felt about Jason when she fell in love,” she thinks. “That she looked at him and felt a fire eating up through her rib cage, turning her blood to boil, evaporating hotly out of every inch of her skin. I feel it so strongly that I cannot imagine how Manny does not feel it, too.”

Although Esch has been sexually active since the age of 12, Manny, a friend of her brother’s, is the first man she’s fallen for. Her desire for a relationship with him is more aspirational than realistic — their couplings are heated but passionless, and he lives with a girlfriend — but hopes, however tenuous, are the lifeline for Esch and her brothers.

The siblings have largely raised themselves since their mother died after giving birth to Junior, the youngest. After her death, their father took up a diminishing cycle of odd jobs, alcohol and anger. They live on several rural acres that belonged to their mother’s family, which once profited by using part of it as an ad-hoc dump. Broken appliances and partly working vehicles dot the yard between their house and the decaying home where their grandparents lived; chickens wander, no longer confined to an abandoned chicken coop.

Randall, the eldest, practices basketball with hopes that it might bring him to the attention of a scout and college. Esch longs for Manny. Skeetah, a year younger than Esch, thinks he’ll be able to sell the puppies from his cherished fighting dog, China.

This would probably be the right place to mention that if you have a problem with dogfights, this might not be the book for you. Or girls having casual sex with their older brothers’ friends at age 12, for that matter. Yet the story is told with such immediacy and openness that it may keep judgments at bay. We are immersed in Esch’s world, a world in which birth and death nestle close, where there is little safety except that which the siblings create for each other.

Ward, 34, accepted the National Book Award saying that she wanted to write about poor, black rural Southerners in such a way that the greater culture would see their stories as universal.

Chickens ordinance approved

Chickens are officially legal in the Town of Windsor for one more year.

During last Monday’s regular town board meeting, the board voted 5-2 to approve on second reading the ordinance extending chicken-keeping in town.

The newly extended ordinance will be back up for discussion next year at this time, when it’s set to sunset again if not extended.

“I can’t support the sunset clause in this ordinance,” said Mayor John Vazquez. “That’s why I’m opposing this ordinance.”

Board member Don Shanfelt, who had concerns about the health issues potentially caused by the chickens, cast the other no vote.

“I’m impressed with the responsibility of the citizens who keep chickens, but I would feel better if we’d heard from someone at CSU Extension,” Shanfelt said.

The chicken-keeping issue has been at times contentious.

A proposal to allow the raising of backyard chickens inside town limits was brought to the board during a meeting in April 2010 by Jared and Ashley Schwader. The couple put together a packet of information that debunked myths and suggested regulations for keeping chickens.

The ordinance allowed residents to keep up to six hens, but no roosters, per property in town. Other requirements include the size of coops and neighbor notification if the coop is going to be located less than 15 feet from the property line.

The ordinance was set to sunset Jan. 1. So at the Nov. 7 work session, the town board took a look at the ordinance and agreed on a couple of changes.

The first change defined a chicken as a bird of a certain species from the moment of its birth, to clear up confusion over whether a non-laying chicken was still a chicken.

The second change dealt with coop removal if a chicken-keeping permit was revoked or the owner ceased keeping chickens for six months.

The sunset clause also was retained, meaning the board would discuss whether to keep chickens in town for another year in Nov. 2012.

However, at the Nov. 14 regular meeting, Vazquez, who was not present at the work session, became concerned that there was no provision for chicken-keepers to raise chicks. He also was displeased the sunset clause would remain, calling it unnecessary.

The board agreed to table the ordinance at that time and look at the original version again later.

The version that passed on first reading on Nov. 28 is the same as the one the board approved last year that keeps the number of chickens allowed at six. It has no exceptions for chicks and keeps the sunset clause, meaning the board will consider this ordinance again next year.

The one change made was to bring the maximum fine for violations up to $1,000, which is in keeping with the rest of the fines charged since the town made the transition to a court of record.

Three members of the public also spoke on the chicken issue.

“My wife and I got a permit this spring and have four chickens,” said Ted Hollman. “I don’t think the sunset clause is necessary because the board can address this ordinance at any time.”

Jon Bork also supports the town allowing chickens.

“I oppose the sunset but support the idea of having a greener, more sustainable way to live,” he said.

John Howton was also pro-chicken.

“I fundamentally have issues with people telling me what I can and can’t have on my three-acre property,” he said.

Going green

Perhaps it's the brilliantly orange nasturtiums scrambling up fences. It could be the infant formula tins that have been painted with bright flowers and butterflies, hanging from an old washing line. Maybe it's the circular garden plots, some dotted with the magenta stems of bolting silverbeet. Likely it has something to do with Julia Milne, statuesque and ethereal in her gumboots and sunhat.

Whatever it is, the garden at Great Start Taita feels like a magical place. Next door, kids from St Michael's School sitting on the monkey bars call out to Milne, the volunteer behind the garden. She's been nominated for NZ Gardener magazine's gardener of the year and has an impressive number of gardening and community-building projects under her supervision in Taita. She sings back "hello" to the monkeys and guides us around the garden. Monarch butterflies glide by. Milne has been here just over a year, turning the formerly empty grounds of Great Start Taita into a model of sustainability, and starting up gardening workshops for children and adults.

One of the most amazing things about the garden Milne and her band have created is how little money it's cost. You won't find stacks of compost bags or soil improvers here; instead there are compost heaps bursting with grass clippings and kitchen scraps, a 40-gallon drum with comfrey leaves and water steeping into a nutrient-laden plant tonic. She keeps a bucket of rotted sheep pellets, seaweed and grass clippings in water as a fertiliser that locals can get a bottle of to take home, "because a lot of our locals don't have compost ready to go". Mulch comes from the council, and gardens are manured with horse poo, bought for only a few dollars.

As we stroll, she throws out gardening tips - how to deal with clay soil, where to get the best seaweed. She won't let us leave empty handed and digs up a comfrey root for us to take home. "You need tomatoes?" she asks.

Companion plants light up the garden with wild flowers, and children from the gardening club Milne started up have their own little plots in stacks of tyres. There are plots dedicated to Maori vegetables, another called the gifting garden, where the produce is given away. Various people have their own plots at the back. Dotted here and there are more nasturtiums, daisies and comfrey. It's the antithesis of the orderly rows you might find in suburban vege patches and gardening magazines. But not every crop is a roaring success. Milne says her last leeks were so thin, a friend cheekily referred to them as "impotent".

Tour downtown's backyard chicken coops this Saturday

You’re in cluck! It’s once again time for the Food Conspiracy’s most popular event – the annual Chicken Coop Tour.

You’d be amazed how many people around town raise chickens in their backyards. Plenty of them are right in the Downtown neighborhoods.

Food Conspiracy’s self-guided tour is a great way to gather information before bringing home a brood. The tour takes place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Dec. 3.

See a wide variety of creative coop styles and sizes. Talk to backyard chicken keepers. Learn about raising chicks.

Food Conspiracy launched Tucson’s first urban chicken coop tour in May 2009. The event is designed to introduce people to the joys (and challenges) of urban chicken keeping.

Food Conspiracy hopes it will inform people about chicken rearing and encourage folks to raise their own chickens in order to have a regular supply of local, fresh, humanely-raised chicken eggs.

Tickets are $5 and are available at the Food Conspiracy Co-op and will be available up until the day of the tour, while supplies last.

Virtually every major American city now boasts at least one annual chicken coop tour, including Raleigh, Atlanta and Spokane. Urban chicken coops have become trendy enough in Chicago to allow Jennifer Murtoff to make a living as an urban chicken consultant.

Once you buy ticket, you will be added to a list of tour participants. All participants will receive an email with a downloadable packet that includes a map to all participating coops and descriptions/pictures of each coop. For anyone without e-mail, a hard copy of the packet can be held for pickup at the co-op.

On the day of the tour, anyone with a ticket can visit any coops they choose to visit anytime between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

There is no set route. Participants can start at any coop. They do not need to visit every coop, and can spend as little or as much time at each coop as they want to.

At each participating coop there will be at least one person available throughout the tour to answer questions about their chickens and coops. Many of the coop owners also have other home sustainability features like cisterns, desert gardens, rainwater harvesting basins and solar ovens, and they’ll be happy to talk about them, too.

All money raised from ticket sales will be donated to the Watershed Management Group’s co-op to offer subsidies for installing backyard chicken coops.

7 Charged With Hate Crimes In Amish Hair Attacks

The leader of a breakaway Amish group allowed the beatings of those who disobeyed him, made some members sleep in a chicken coop and had sexual relations with married women to "cleanse them," federal authorities said as they charged him and six others with hate crime counts in hair-cutting attacks against other Amish.

Authorities raided the group's compound in eastern Ohio on Wednesday morning and arrested seven men, including group leader Sam Mullet and three of his sons.

Several members of the group carried out the attacks in September and October by forcefully cutting the beards and hair of Amish men and women, authorities said. Cutting the hair is a highly offensive act to the Amish, who believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards and stop shaving once they marry.

The attacks struck at the core of the Amish identity and tested their principles. They strongly believe that they must be forgiving in order for God to forgive them, which often means handing out their own punishment and not reporting crimes to law enforcement.

The attacks had terrorized Amish communities, Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdalla said at a news conference Wednesday.

"You've got Amish all over the state of Ohio and Pennsylvania and Indiana that are concerned. We've received hundreds and hundreds of calls from people living in fear," he said. "They are buying Mace, some are sitting with shotguns, getting locks on their doors because of Sam Mullet."

Mullet told The Associated Press in October that he didn't order the hair-cutting but didn't stop his sons and others from carrying it out. He said the goal was to send a message to other Amish that they should be ashamed of themselves for the way they were treating Mullet and his community.

"They changed the rulings of our church here, and they're trying to force their way down our throat, make us do like they want us to do, and we're not going to do that," Mullet said.

U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach said Wednesday that religious differences should be a matter of theological debate, not disputes "resolved by late night visits to people's homes with weapons and violent attacks." He said he did not know how often hate crimes involve intradenominational disputes.

The seven men were in custody and expected to be arraigned Wednesday in Youngstown. They include Mullet; his sons Johnny, Lester and Daniel; Levi Miller; Eli Miller; and Emanuel Schrock. The charges carry a penalty of up 10 years in prison.

Holmes County Prosecutor Steve Knowling, who filed state charges against five of the same defendants last month, said he would dismiss those counts and let federal prosecutors take the lead in the case.

In the state case, an Amish bishop and his son said they were held down while men used scissors and a clipper to cut their beards. Similar attacks were under investigation in Amish communities in Carroll, Jefferson and Trumbull counties in eastern and northeastern Ohio.

A defense attorney in the state case, Andy Hyde, said Sam Mullet would fight the federal charges. Hyde said he didn't know if he would represent Mullet in federal court.

The seven men were sleeping when the FBI and local police showed up at their homes before dawn Wednesday, Abdalla said. Three men initially refused to come out of their rooms, but all seven were arrested without incident, he said.

The attacks came amid long-simmering tension between Amish bishops and Mullet's group, which he established in 1995. Arlene Miller, the wife of one victim, said several bishops hadn't condoned Mullet's decision to excommunicate several members, saying there was no spiritual justification for his action.

One of Mullet's daughters-in-law and a former brother-in-law told investigators that Mullet controls everything that happens within the community outside Bergholz and that he allowed others to beat members of the group who disobeyed him, according to an affidavit filed in federal court Wednesday.

Mullet punished some by making them sleep in a chicken coop for days and was sexually intimate with married women in the community so that he could "cleanse them of the devil," the two said in the affidavit.

Both said they left the community because they did not want to live under Mullet's control.

Authorities have said some Amish refused to press charges, following their practice of avoiding involvement the courts.

One couple refused to press charges even after acknowledging that their two sons and another man came into their house, held them down, and cut the father's beard and the mother's hair. But others have said they decided to press charges to prevent anyone else from getting hurt.

Ohio has an estimated Amish population of just under 61,000 second only to Pennsylvania with most living in rural counties south and east of Cleveland.

They have a modest lifestyle and are deeply religious. Their traditions of traveling by horse and buggy and forgoing most modern conveniences distance themselves from the outside world and symbolize a yielding to a collective order.

Senior citizen fights village officials over chicken coop

On peaceful property along the Huron River in the village of Milford, three regal birds of a British breed and aptly named Kate, Queenie and Fergie rule the roost, but maybe not for long.

A judge has ruled the birds' owner, 93-year-old Archie Noon, is violating a village ordinance.

Archie wanted to have some fun, and make a little cash so he built a henhouse, called his property Bridgeview Farm, and started selling eggs by the side of the road.

But it all ruffled the feathers of village officials, and Archie got ticketed.

"Throughout the whole country, there's backyard chickens being raised all the time," Noon said. "So why can't we do that in Milford?"

The two sides ended up in court, with Archie claiming the Michigan Right to Farm Act allows him to have the hens and sell their eggs. But a judge this week said because Archie hardly made any money, just $14, the business was not profitable, and could not be protected by any laws.

"How do you develop a profitable business in that short period of time," Noon says.

He just started the business in May.

Archie now has 60 days to get rid of his birds and pay a 50 dollar fine.

But Archie says he is not chickening out and he will appeal, and if he loses, the chickens will have to fly the coop.

Milford’s Village Manager says the animal control ordinance is in effect to protect the character of the community, and the ordinance must apply to everyone.