Spending on police per person, fiscal year 2012

By Matt Carroll, Boston Globe | June 27, 2013

Click here to see a larger, interactive version of this chart.
Additional town-by-town snapshots.

By Jessica Bartlett, Town Correspondent

Several calves have been born recently at Hornstra Farms' Hingham and Norwell locations, as the dairy farm continues its slow but steady growth.

The calves are part of an ever-evolving process of building a herd, said owner John Hornstra.

“We milk like 38 cows right now, and bottle the milk from those 38 cows,'' he said. "And then the young cows are future milk producers. We hope to milk 60 cows when we’re at full production. We’re raising these cows to fill our barn.”

According to Hornstra, cows give milk for only 305 days after giving birth. To keep milk production going, cows are continually bred. Gestation takes nine months, and cows are typically bred again a few months after giving birth.

That process had grown Honstra’s heard from the six he started with in 2005 to the 38 at the farm today, which is soon to have even more once the calves are grown.

“There’s a bunch at Hersey Street and a bunch at our farm in Norwell,” Honstra said of the babes, who are grazing on open pastures.

Farming goes back a long way with the Hornstra family, starting in 1915.

In the early '70s, the family got out of the cow business, but when John Hornstra took over in 1985, he was determined to bring it back.

“I always wanted to have a farm where people could come and see the cows being milked and it being bottled and making ice cream. That’s when I decided I wanted to have a farm locally,” he said.

Hornstra has been building on that dream since then, making improvements to the farm to support the diary operation, and adding milking cows bit by bit.

“Other than having my own children, [farming is] probably the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. Raising a cow, seeing the milk it’s producing, it’s very rewarding,” Hornstra said.

Despite the growth of the heard, Hornstra Farms is not a factory, owners say. Production is done as it was on an old-fashioned dairy farm, and the farmers don’t use artificial growth hormones.

That commitment to fresh, local, and pure has customers coming back after a rough economy.

“We’re very fortunate,” he said. “We have a wonderful clientele of people that prefer better-quality products or fresher or local. That’s what we specialize in, is locally produced.”

Hornstra Farms will soon be open to the public so people can see the cows being milked as well as come by for fresh produce.

“We’re still under construction, but we’re hoping to be ready for the public sometime … this summer,” Honstra said.

For more information on the farm, click here.

By Jessica Bartlett, Town Correspondent

With 10 years of offering small community grants to organizations throughout the South Shore, the Blue Hills Community Health Alliance will start a new initiative this year, offering up to two larger grants to worthy organizations.

Geared towards groups in Braintree, Quincy, Hingham, Scituate, Canton, Cohasset, Hull, Milton, Norwell, Norwood, Randolph, Sharon, and Weymouth, the goal of the grants is to improve local health.

As has occurred in the past, several grants, typically 10-20, ranging from $500-$3,500 each, will be handed out for smaller initiatives. Yet for the first time this year, one or two “Impact Grants” will be given out ranging from $3,600-$10,000.

“We did fund many wonderful grants last year,” said Stephanie Nitka, Blue Hills Community Health Network Area Coordinator. “It’s exciting to see what each group does with a small amount of money, and it will be exciting to see what happens with these Impact Grants.”

Last year, grants were given to a variety of organizations after an extensive vetting process, with Quincy’s Germantown Neighborhood Center, Point Webster Middle School, Quincy Asian Resources, and Manet Community Health Center all receiving funding.

Over $39,000 in funding was doled out in total to 13 organizations.

This year, along with the opportunity to win larger grants, the organization has also received more money, preparing to hand out $55,000 in funding to a variety of organizations.

According to Nitka, the funding comes from a Determination of Need funding from hospitals – money that is taken from hospital renovations and given to the Department of Public Health to be dolled out to community organizations.

On the Health Alliance website, funders included the South Shore Hospital, Norwood Hospital, Harvard Vanguard, and Weymouth MRI.

With more money this year, the process will be no less intensive. Those looking to apply will have to attend a mandatory information session on either April 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. or on April 25 from 5 to 7 p.m.

From there, organizations will fill out an application. Projects must either improve access to care, prevent or manage chronic disease, improve mental health in the community, or address substance abuse.

A judging panel made up of reviewers from the community judge the applications on how they fit the criteria and will decide who receives funding.

According to Nitka, applications are due by May 16 and winners will be announced by June 30. Awarded programs will start July 1.

For more information and to register for an information session, visit here.

Sarah Moomaw, Globe Correspondent

It was a senior night that will live forever in Norwell girls' basketball history.

Six minutes into the second quarter, senior center Brenna Diggins grabbed her 1,000th career rebound as the Clippers went on to defeat Mashpee, 54-14, and move to 16-4 on the season.

She hit 1,000 career points as a junior - currently sitting at 1,359 - for the first player in school history to be a double member of the 1,000-stat club.

"For our program it solidifies what the entire program stands for - playing every possession and not taking anything for granted," coach Matt Marani said.

Diggins, playing gingerly on a sore knee, entered seven rebounds from the historic mark and finished exactly there, coming out two minutes later and sitting for the rest of the game. She had 11 points.

Marani said he run plays for her to do her thing - ideally finding a one-on-one situation to let her drop-step, but really he expects everything and anything from her.

"It starts in the paint with Brenna, and her teammates step up as we play," he said. "She drives her team, and it's been that way for four years."

Diggins only has two regular-season games left in a Clippers uniform.

"I hope someday I'll another have a player like her, but it's very doubtful ," Marani said.

The With a huge snowstorm heading toward the region, the Valentine’s Dessert Tasting at the James Library and Center for the Arts, originally scheduled for Friday, Feb. 8, has been postponed until Friday, Feb. 15, at 8 p.m.

“All of our vendors were able to reschedule and will be here,” director Caroline Chapin said. “We’re rescheduling for the safety of our vendors and guests.”

All tickets will be honored for the snow date. To read about this event, click here.

For more information, visit www.jameslibrary.org.

By Globe Staff

A funeral service for Eleanor A. Norris, who died in late November at the age of 100, will be held this Saturday at 2 p.m. at the First Parish Unitarian Church, 24 River St., in Norwell.

Norris created the Albert F. Norris Reservation with a donation of nearly 100 acres of land along the North River in 1970, eight years after the death of her husband, Albert. She will be buried next to her husband in the cemetery by the First Parish.

Contributions to help preserve the reservation can be made to the Eleanor Norris Endowment Fund, Trustees of the Reservations, 572 Essex St., Beverly, MA 01915.

By Anne Steele, Globe Correspondent

It took local and state police, firefighters, helicopters, and dogs, but three 14-year-old Norwell boys were eventually rescued from a frigid swamp in Wompatuck State Park Tuesday night.

According to Norwell Police Chief Ted Ross, the search began after one of the boys’ parents reported them missing around 7 p.m. Ross said the boys left around 5 p.m. for a walk in the wooded swamp area behind one of boys’ homes on School Street. He noted that none of the boys brought a cell phone.

Norwell police called in canine units from Scituate and Hingham to conduct an investigation of nearby homes.

While calling out into in the woods, one of the parents heard a response from a distance, prompting the police to surround the area with cruisers and lights.

The State Police Air Wing, the state public safety aviation unit, located the boys using helicopters and infrared equipment, at which point “the search became a rescue,” Ross said. “A challenging aspect was that the boys were at least 150 yards into wooded swamp area that was chest-high with water, and thick brush made using a boat impossible.”

He said the rescue team had to wear survivor suits, which are bulky and made maneuvering even more difficult.

Helicopter lights guided a rescue team including Mercy Medical Center personnel to where boys were. They were brought out of the swamp near the Mount Blue Street-School Street intersection at about 11:30 p.m., more than six hours after leaving for their walk.

Each was put in ambulance and sent to South Shore Hospital, where they were treated for exposure, hypothermia, and frostbite.

Ross noted that when going into the woods, the time of day is significant to have bearing. He advised “using sound judgment on when you go out, making sure people know where you’re going, bringing cell phones, being familiar with your surroundings, and going out when it’s lighter.”

Ross said there will be no repercussions for the boys or their families, and that this is considered a “closed case.”

“We are thrilled that the boys are OK,” Ross said. “The coordinated effort among agencies was critical in having this outcome.”

Four master chefs from around the South Shore share their holiday secrets, bound to satisfy your guests — or yourself.

View recipes and pictures here.

By Zach Mertz, Guest Columnist

Rock Salt is the most commonly used method for melting that pesky winter ice that builds up on our roads, driveways, and front stoops. It's cheap and easy to apply and, frankly, it does a darn good job. But before you go out and douse your driveway to keep Santa from taking a nasty spill this year, there’s a few things you should know. Rock salt is a very corrosive and concentrated substance, which can cause problems for your local plants, animals, and waterways. Not to mention it can do pretty serious number on your paintjob.

What’s that you say? It's just salt which exist in nature anyways, so what’s the big deal? Well...you're right. Rock salt is essentially just large chunks of sodium chloride minerals, the same stuff you used to salt those holiday cookies, but the danger comes in the amount, not from the chemical makeup.

In nature it's all over the place. It’s in the soil, the air, the ocean, heck humans are made of about 1% salt, but it always subscribes to a natural balance. When you dump a large input of salt into a system that is not equipped to deal with it, it can upset the balance and cause real problems for plants and animals.

So here’s where it becomes your problem. Salt is water soluble, meaning that it dissolves into water and becomes a component of the fluid. It then can flow with the water wherever it is headed and ends up wherever the topography flattens out. When you use it to melt ice in your driveway it does just that, and flows off of your impermeable driveway until it gets absorbed or pools somewhere flat.

Now this is troublesome because most often driveways are designed on a down slope to allow excess water to runoff of them. This means that the salty water will either runoff onto your lawn, or into the street where it will continue flowing into a storm drain, culvert, or water feature.

If it ends up in your lawn, its pretty much game over for your grass. The salty water is absorbed into the soil which lowers the PH, making the soil more acidic, which inhibits nutrient and water transfer to the plants that grow there. It’s just like if you eat too much salty popcorn and have to drink more fluids to balance yourself out. When excess salt is present plants need more water to compensate which they may not be able to get.

Additionally, the animals that depend on eating your lawn to survive also get the short end of the stick. They are left either with no food, or the food they do get is very high in salt which can cause health problems, namely salt poisoning. Salt is also an irritant, especially in high concentrations, which means pets and wildlife with pads on the bottoms may get superficial burns.

Let's say that your property is safe from salt damage and you’re one of those households whose excess water drains directly into the street, you’re off the hook right? Sorry, no such luck. When saline water flows onto an impermeable surface like the street it just keeps on trucking until it either gets absorbed and ruins some other poor sap's lawn, or it makes its way into some sort of storm water drainage infrastructure, be it a drain, culvert, drainage ditch, river, stream or something of the like.

As we know, many of these outlets feed directly into freshwater systems like the local river or stream in an effort to prevent flooding and dilute pollution inputs. The funny thing about salt and freshwater is that a very small concentration of sodium chloride can have an disproportionately large effect on water quality. It only takes a pinch to degrade water past the point where it is no longer safe for consumption. So when you get a whole community salting their driveways and the runoff is coagulating in the same drainage systems, it can really cause some serious damage. Come springtime when everything starts flowing again, plants and wildlife that use streams as drinking and food sources are heavily impacted.

Now you’re probably thinking, “Great now I feel bad, but I still don’t have a solution to my ice problem." Have no fear: there are a number of environmentally friendly ice melters that will do the trick. As this issue has gained more notoriety in recent years, people have developed all sorts of new commercial solutions to take care of the problem without angering the local raccoon population. Here at the New England Wildlife Center, we came up with our own home-brew to melt ice using things we found in our freezer, and it works pretty well. Check out this video link for our recipe, and have a good winter.

Note: For another resource for alternative ideas to road salt, click here.

Zach Mertz is a resource development associate at the New England Wildlife Center. This blog post is not written or edited by Boston.com or the Boston Globe. The author is solely responsible for the content.

View pictures here of some of the wild animals that the center has rescued.

By Jessica Bartlett, Town Correspondent

Quincy police arrested a man who allegedly robbed a Sovereign Bank last Saturday, and is suspected of involvement in four other bank robberies.

According to police, the suspect allegedly robbed a Sovereign Bank on Beale Street on the morning of Dec. 15.

Police then did some investigating into the robbery and checked with local parole officers. One parole officer said the man in the video looked like one of his clients, who had been released from federal prison on Oct. 25, and gave police his name.

Police put out an arrest warrant on the man and picked him up in South Boston on Thursday night.

John L. Haddad, 50, who did not have his own address but gave those of family in Rockland and Weymouth, was arrested and charged with unarmed robbery, stealing from a depository, placing a person in fear, and larceny over $250.

Haddad was brought back to Quincy and held overnight. He was to be arraigned on the charges Friday morning.

According to Quincy police, other charges may be pending, as officers suspect the same man may have been involved in robberies in elsewhere on the South Shore.

Police said the other robberies occurred at an Eastern Bank in Weymouth on Nov. 8, at the Crescent Credit Union in Norwell on Nov. 16, at an Eastern Bank in Norwell on Nov. 18, and at an Eastern Bank in Braintree on Nov. 30.