-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, Sept. 11, 1976 * > \ - 4 * \ * 'I " \ ar- - i x-' At present, the farming operation on the Skiles freestall barn for their Holsteins is under con farm is expanding. A new milking parlor and struction. The Kenneth Skiles family [Continued from Page 72) Another fascinating aspect they found when they were wiring for electricity in the house is that the molding on another door in the first addition isn’t really molding. Instead, the entire door was carved out of a huge slab of wood, including the molding. “The carpenter told me to take the molding off so he could wire,’’ explains Skiles, “but I realized I couldn’t get it off - that it was all one carved piece - so I knocked a hole in my wall rather than rum the door.” This door, as is nearly every old door into the home, is pegged into place. Another interesting feature of this initially added section of the house is a built in comer cupboard. While the Skiles family assures that it can be removed, it would take a lot of work because of the chair railing which is built around the entire room. It appears that the carpenter intended the cupboard to stay, because he ran the railing around the room and over the cupboard, thus pinning it to the corner, in a sense. The railing brings up another interesting facet of, the house. Since it was added onto at various intervals of history, different styles of architecture were in vogue at different tunes. So, only one area of the house has a chair railing, for instance, because it was only in style during one particular era. At present, this section of the house is painted with a whitewash-type of paint to simulate the original ap pearance of the house. Before the Skiles family began remodeling, however, the rooms had been wallpapered Mrs. Skiles did all the labor of removing the paper, herself, and when she did, she found royal blue stenciling underneath it on the bare walls “From the stenciling we are able to figure out the age of the room,” she details. “Back at that time, sten ciling was a poor man’s wallpaper.” Skiles goes on to explain that a professional stenciler rode around the country on horseback, doing his work wherever he could obtain it. And, although, it is called a s®sp ■ V **■ " V “poor man’s wallpaper”, the Skiles family feels that it was probably a privilege of the prominent. This room also has one of the two chimneys set on a “V”. The other is now blocked up and used for the heating system. Although the Skiles family did a large amount of restoring, they didn’t restore every part of the house. Instead, they added some modern features, such as a new kitchen for Mrs. Skiles. They refer to this change as “our addition.” “Ours isn’t very large, though,” says Skiles with a grin, “only 9 x 11 ” Electric Generating Systems Built to Your Specifications Manual or Automatic L P. Gas • Diesel - Gasoline ior°* USED 100 HP GE motor, 3 ph. 1770 RPM, ball bearing, drip proof $5OO 15 KW 18 75 KVA Continental PTO Gen., ph. 1, 540 RPM drive, trailer $9OO. ’5 KW 31.2 KVA Gen Set, P&H 2 cyl. dsl, 1200 RPM, 1 ph., skid $2500. 28 KW 35 KVA Gen set, 4-71 GM Dsl, 1200 RPM, 3 ph , skid, recently rebuilt, $4OOO. 30 KW 37 5 KVA Gen Set, IH 4 cyl Dsl., 1200 RPM, 3 ph , skid $l5OO 50 KW 62 5 KVA Gen Set, IH 6 cyl Dsl, 1200 RPM, 3 ph , skid $2500 50 KW 62 5 KVA Gen Set, Caterpillar 4 cyl Dsl, 900 RPM, 3 ph, 4 wheel trailer, $3500 All 3 phase units can be used as single phase units Sales - Service Martin Electric Plants Isaac W. Martin, Owner Pleasant Valley Rd , RD2 Ephrata, PA (717) 733-7968 . W * s £T",?t *■,**%* „ *.<* \.<\ * ». They also closed in a porch which Mrs. Skiles now uses for her laundry. It may seem like a paradox to go to all the trouble of restoring a large portion of the house to its original state and then changing and modernizing another section, but the Skiles have an answer to that. “To comfortably live in a house,” they explain, “we feel you need modem, easy to care for, working con ditions.” So, the kitchen is an outgrowth of that philosophy. The Farm The farm, itself, has the same type of history of growth and development as the house. Although it came down to the Skiles through a maternal line, its history is simple to follow. Only two family lines have lived on the property since its conception. The second line to own it was the Reesers, and Skiles is a descendent of this line. John Reeser first pur chased the property in 1840. He had 10 sons, one of which was Samuel. After 48 years of working the soil, John passed the farm down to I Continued on Page 76| MEMO HAY, STRAW and EAR CORN SALE EVERY MONDAY AT 11 AM EVERY WEDNESDAY 12 00 NOON NEW HOLLAND SALES STABLES, INC Phone 717 354 4341 Lloyd H Kreider Auct VENTILATORS BARNS - CHICKEN HOUSES SHEDS Custom Made Completely Assembled No Flashing Needed FOR FREE ESTIMATI PHONE 354-4114 *£eo*i 7H. # HOME I«fvi Price index dropped HARRISBURG - The August 15, 1976 Index of Prices Received by Penn sylvania fanners decreased two per cent from the previous month, but was three per cent above a , ear earlier, according to the Crop Reporting Service. Lower prices for food and feed grains, hogs, slaughter cows, and lambs more than offset slightly higher prices for milk cows, calves, steers and heifers, sheep and poultry. The purchasing power of prices received was one percentage point below July and two percentage ffamtCK,