Bumper Crop

REGARDING the piece on the Democrats' ho-hum political buttons and bumper stickers: The author must not have looked too hard. I went through a common search-engine and was able to purchase some great stuff. How about: "There's a Village in Texas Missing Their Idiot. " "Like Father Like Son: One Term. " "GOP: Leave No Billionaire Behind. " "Stop Mad Cowboy Disease. " I don't know about you, but I think they're pretty funny. Lindsay Mace George Haddonfield, N.J.

Bite into a jewel - a glamorous, ripe red strawberry - and you're in for an explosion of fabulous sweet flavor. At least that's what many consumers are experiencing with this year's crop of excellent berries. Providing Mother Nature cooperates, it's anticipated that there will be plenty of excellent-quality, ruby-red treasures available throughout the year as California growers, who produce 88 percent of the nation's strawberry crop, are now marketing berries year-round. "The projected strawberry crop for '06 is 2.2 billion pounds, up 8 percent over last year's record-breaking crop of just over 2 billion pounds," said Steve Lyle of the California Department of Agriculture.

It's red and white and may soon be seen gracing the bumpers of hundreds of South Jersey automobiles. It's the "Shop Historic Haddonfield" bumper sticker, the opening shot in the campaign recently initiated by the Haddonfield Preservation Society to promote the borough's historic business district. The campaign will tout the major economic assets of the business district - "the pleasures of Main Street shopping in a historic and beautiful town," according to Joan Aiken, executive director of the society and campaign program coordinator.

Just three weeks ago, Sydney Kurtz, an assistant district forester, could not get to fire-lookout towers in Schuylkill County because of too much snow. This week, Kurtz was in those same woods, this time sweating in 80-degree temperatures while helping to combat what he called "a bumper crop" of forest fires. Kurtz said the sudden warm weather has quickly melted the snow and have turned the forest into a tinderbox. On Tuesday and Wednesday alone, flames consumed more than 1,000 acres in the Weiser Fire District, which includes Carbon County, northern Lehigh County, Schuylkill County and part of Berks County.

IS IT JUST US, or did 2007 produce a bumper crop of bad parents? It seems that over the past few months, we've read far too many sad stories featuring mothers and fathers whose poor parenting skills have had a direct, and sometimes deadly, impact on their children. So, as the year winds down and critics publish their "best of 2007" lists, here are our nominees for Best Bad Parents of the Year: Danielle Cattie: She allows her daughter, Ebony Dorsey, 14, an honor student, to baby-sit her boyfriend's 4-year-old daughter overnight at his house . . . the one he shares with his wife.

The next time you grab a glass of cranberry juice, keep this in mind - the berries used to make that beverage most likely grew in Burlington County, New Jersey's cranberry heartland. Growers will be harvesting cranberries through the end of this month, and officials at the New Jersey Department of Agriculture say they are anticipating a bumper crop of berries - 525,000 barrels, an amount equal to 52.5 million pounds. That's a lot of cranberry sauce! But the current harvest comes in second to the 558,000 barrels of cranberries harvested in 1994, said New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Arthur Brown Jr. State agriculture statistics show that in 1994, cranberries were the third largest revenue-producing fruit or vegetable in New Jersey, following peppers and tomatoes, respectively.

Many people assume the nation's prolonged recession means that nothing much is getting built in Philadelphia. That's because they're looking up instead of looking down. Today, the real action is on the ground, and Philadelphia is enjoying a bumper crop of new parks. Since opening two weeks ago, the Race Street Pier, the scenester hangout on the Delaware, has monopolized most of the attention, but at least four more designer parks are set to open before the year is out. Several existing oases - from the hole-in-the-wall Chestnut Street Park to sprawling Hunting Park - also are in various states of refurbishment.

The Cincinnati Reds boldly sign lefthander John Smiley, a free agent who has won 57 games in the last four seasons. The Phillies, meanwhile, swap two prospects for lefty Danny Jackson, winner of just 21 games in the same period. The San Francisco Giants wave $43 million before Barry Bonds. The Phils target mediocrities such as Milt Thompson and Pete Incaviglia. Kirby Puckett, a magnetic all-star, asks to meet with the Phillies' brass, whose members respond as if they discovered something nasty stuck to their shoe.

A 210-acre farm in New Hope has been transformed into a community art school with classes in painting, drawing, sculpting, printmaking and more. The University of Pennsylvania's Edna and Monroe C. Gutman Center for the Fine Arts was launched this fall with four courses and 20 students. In the spring, the program will be expanded to eight classes, along with special programs for adults and children. Most courses, held on Saturdays, are taught by students or graduates of Penn's Graduate School of Fine Arts.

A nosy camera catches a dandelion in the act of propagating itself far and wide to guarantee another bumper crop of lawn blooms next spring. This reproductive ritual took place along Kelly Drive. If you're wondering where the yellow went, this is the dandelion's colorless end stage. Each puffy ball of fluff supposedly contains 65 seeds that will be wind-carried to grassy locations where they'll nestle and develop thick, hairy taproots that may go down as deep as three feet. Lawn lovers consider them ugly, pesky weeds, but connoisseurs smack their lips contemplating dandelion wine and salads made from dandelion greens.

Major-league baseball historians refer to the first 20 years of the 20th century as the "Dead Ball Era. " South Jersey baseball has entered the "Live Arm Era. " Both time periods have stressed the same aspects of the sport: fielding, baserunning, situational hitting and, most of all, the performance of the guys on the pitching mound. "There are just so many good arms out there," Bishop Eustace coach Sam Tropiano said. "I'm not sure I've ever seen this many who are this good. " Combined with last season's rule change that reduced the "trampoline effect" of composite bats - an equipment switch that lessened the power of the rebound of the ball off the bat - the emergence of so many accomplished pitchers has transformed the sport.

The pink blossoms started showing up in March, long before their usual appearance. Now, at orchards across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, peaches are being harvested a full two to three weeks ahead of schedule. "People are excited about everything being early," said Eric Johnson, co-owner of Johnson's Corner Farm in Medford, where the harvest began Saturday. "Typically, we'd begin picking in the third week of June. " Not this year, not after the warmest first four months since the start of official temperature records in 1874.

Sharing the same economy with double-digit unemployment is a rush of restaurant openings. Construction and real estate costs are down. The workforce is eager. Entrepreneurs want to put their money where (patrons') mouths are. A review of 60 restaurants due to open in the remainder of 2011 shows a mix of price ranges, styles, and ambition. Pockets of Center City, especially near Broad Street and Rittenhouse Square, are the hottest areas. The restaurant zone of Washington Square West, now concentrated on 13th Street between Chestnut and Walnut Streets, will expand south.

MIDDLE TOWNSHIP, N.J. - James Wright had never worked on a farm before. Now the former line cook from Philadelphia spends his days planting and plowing a verdant field at Bruised Reed Farm in Cape May County. "It gives me something positive to do, something to keep me busy," he said. "It keeps me off the street. " Five days a week, Wright, 61, is among a dozen or so men transported from the Atlantic City Rescue Mission to the 31/2-acre agricultural project in Goshen, where produce is cultivated for use in the homeless shelter's kitchen.

Many people assume the nation's prolonged recession means that nothing much is getting built in Philadelphia. That's because they're looking up instead of looking down. Today, the real action is on the ground, and Philadelphia is enjoying a bumper crop of new parks. Since opening two weeks ago, the Race Street Pier, the scenester hangout on the Delaware, has monopolized most of the attention, but at least four more designer parks are set to open before the year is out. Several existing oases - from the hole-in-the-wall Chestnut Street Park to sprawling Hunting Park - also are in various states of refurbishment.

The sun is out, the flip-flops are on, and this spring has produced a bumper crop of young-adult novels. Here's a handful worth looking at: The Girl With the Mermaid Hair By Delia Ephron (Harper Teen, $16.99) In this funny and nuanced novel, Delia of the Ephron media empire takes on some interesting subjects, starting with that teen phenomenon, the taking of a "selfie. " Fifteen-year-old Sukie is obsessed with her phone - with taking pictures of herself with the thing, mostly, but also with waiting for a text from Bobo, the improbably named football hottie she's always hoping to hear from.

"FOR better or for worse, this individual has done the most to influence the events of the year. " So reads the preamble to Time magazine's annual Person of the Year distinction, conferred yesterday on Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman. It isn't an "award" in the traditional sense, but an acknowledgment that an individual, group or movement made headlines and influenced people throughout the world in ways nobody else had. As the definition notes, that can be for better or for worse.

This is one of the best years for South Jersey quarterbacks in recent memory, but trying to pinpoint why this year is different is as difficult as stopping the many wide-open offenses that are becoming commonplace throughout the area. Improved training techniques and the proliferation of spread offenses are the two main reasons given for the quarterback upsurge. Those two factors were in play last year, and there were no players recruited as quarterbacks to Football Bowl Subdivision schools (formerly Division I-A)

Over the last several years, the Phillies have made midseason deals to acquire pitchers Joe Blanton, Jamie Moyer, Kyle Lohse and Cory Lidle. In coming seasons, the Phils might not have to go the trade route to stabilize their pitching staff. Or, if the organization still wants to make a deal, it may have pieces to shop. That's because something interesting is happening in the upper levels of the Phils' minor-league system. Suddenly, there is pitching depth. Homegrown, on-the-rise pitching depth.

At the Shore, the sand is the texture of thick, cold porridge. On the mainland, a promising strawberry season has met a painfully premature end in many places. And if you feel as though you've been living under a cloud for a month - you have. Whatever Rodgers and Hammerstein had in mind by their lyric "fresh and alive and gay and young, June is a love song sweetly sung," this probably wasn't it. June 2009 has been a month that only a fungus could love. The next clear day in Philadelphia - and showers are in the forecast at least through Sunday - will be the first of the month.