Lancaster Farming says...
Read
“I don't care what the accountants
say as long as the miik checks keep
conning."
"i can’t make out ail those fancy
figures and terms, is a retained
margin like a retained placenta?"
“It's all a bunch of numbers and
they can make them say anything
they want, anyway."
Fall, in addition to being the
season of colorful trees, is the season
of annual meetings for a host of
Pennsylvania farm organizations.
Almost ail groups ace required by
their by-laws to submit to their
members a treasurer’s report or
balance sheet
The report should list ail revenue
taken in, all money spent, disclose
outstanding debt, accounts payable
and recievable.
It should disclose how excess
funds were handled during the year
(a bank account is good, high-interest
notes is better).
Depending on the type of
organization there should be figures
telling what each member’s equity in
the group is, whether or not there
will be a membership dividend, how
much money was paid in taxes.
A HOUSE IS
NOT A HOME
Octobers, 1980
Background Scripture:
2 Samuel 7;
1 Chronicles 16:1-36"
Devotional Reading:
Romans 14:1-0
apply lime and fertilizer
without having their soil
tested. It seems this has
been the practice with some
families for several
generations. This might not
do much harm but in some
cases it is poor use of lime
SERVICES md fertilier dollars. This is
timea_each week the,tirhe of the year to be
we talk with fanners or drawing soil samples for
gardeners who continue to, testing to learn the needs for
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/VIARY.^OR
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King David bad a brilliant
idea!
It was the kind of brilliant
idea that one would have
expected from such an
illustrious leader. It was
original It was exciting. It
would be symbolic of
David’s and the nation’s
devotion to the Lord. It
would become a focus of
national price for the people
of Israel And it wouldn’t do
David’s already staggering
reputation any harm, either.
-' For generations God had
traveled with the people of
Israel in a tent, the desert
tabernacle that was put up
and torn down wherever the
people of the Covenant
v&iHemezm*
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those balance sheets
The statement should be com
pared to last year’s statement line for
line. Any major differences should be
questioned by members.
After all, it’s the members who own
the organization and the financial
statement is just like a doctor’s
physical for the membership.
Nothing puts a group’s directors or
officers on the spot so fast as in-
FaU:
As the first few ears of corn clunk
into the wagon the feeling of Fail
takes over.
Fields no longer are green and
growing. They are brown and yellow.
Finished and dying.
There's a feeling of relief that the
silos are fu11... the same feeling
reflected in the face of an old man
who has just climbed a long flight of
stairs.
No longer is it wise to head out for
the fields without a sweatshirt. The
days of sunshine baking down are
pretty much gone for this year.
Fall: it’s the time of crunchy apples
and warning the children not to drink
too much of the freshly squeezed
wandered. While they were a
nomadic people, it bad been
a great idea. They were a
people who could take their
God with them—or was it
that he was taking them with
him?
A HOUSE TO LIVE IN
But they were no longer a
nomadic people. They had
settled down in the Promised
Land which God In his
Covenant had promised
them. There was no longer a
need for God to move around
in a tent. Just as now David
had a permanent home—a
rather fine one too, a house
of cedar—so now God also
should have a permanent
home. “See now,” David
the 1981 cropping seasoil. To
continue to add lime and
fertilizer without knowing of
the soil needs is a poor
practice. Many of our soils
are high enough in one or
more of the fertilizer
elements; dollars can be
used more efficient on
materials that the soil ac
tually needs.
TO MANAGE
HORIZONTAL SILOS
Even though the local corn
ifi«r mx
tefligent questions about the group’s
financial status.
Any question should be answered
quickly and openly. If it isn't, it’s time
to took for new leaders.
All it may take is a year or two of
the members’ accepting sloppy
accounting to put an end to those
miik checks.
reds,
yellows, and some blues
cider.
It’s watching the yellow bus come
and go twice a day and having to
remind one’s self that they’re in
second grade now, not first.
The brown thing bouncing across
the road most likely is not a rabbit
but a large oak leaf pushed along by
the chill breeze.
Yellow, red, and brown somehow
aren't the right colors for trees.
While there is no question of their
beauty somehow it’s like seeing an
empty and darkened meeting hall.
There isa finality and a loneliness.
As Spring reminds us of the hope
of new birth so Fall brings to mind
our shortcomings: there’s the
tells Nathan the Prophet, “I
dwell in a house of cedar, but
the ark of God dwells in a
tent:” (2Scmuel7:2).
I don’t want to take
anything away from David’s
desire to build a permanent
house for the Lord, but I’m
sure that his grand impulse
was at least partly ac
counted for by some very
personal considerations' as
well as faith and reverence.
Now that David had become
a first-rate monarch over a
nation that until recently
had not been'much of a
nation—still wasn’t, really—
it was natural that he would
want to enhance Israel’s
status—and his own—with a
building program. A temple
crop is not a record yield, we
do have some livestock and
dairy producers that need to
store silage in a temporary
structure. In many cases
this is a trench or a bunker
silo, mostly above ground. In
these cases, it is very im
portant to keep out excess
water and air from the silage
mass. This will require
tightening down the plastic
cover week by week as the
silage settles. Also, surface
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«y CURT MJUULER, EDITOR
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- if there are serious questions
about the accuracy or validity of a
report's figures, the members must
demand an independent audit.
Know the terms accountants use
and what they mean. A clue: retained
margins have nothing to do with
calvingproblems.
After all, it’s your financial future
4hat is at stake.
pasture that never did get fertilized
although it would have taken just a
phone call to get it done.
That, board is still loose on the
shed. And the cracked glass in the
barn never got replaced.
Why is it we think of these things
only inr Fall? June, July and August
always promised another day to get
the job done. Suddenly it is as if a
deadline has passed.
Has our family, our community,
benefited from the season’s work or
has it been another year of survival
from one bank payment to the next?
Fall: if we are making progress in
this life why is it such a melancholic
time for so many people?
would say to Israel’s
neighbors: “Hey, look here,
we’re somebody, too” plus
“What do you think of our
great King?”
There may have -been
another very human emotion
that figured in David’s
desire to build a temple; he
may have felt just a twinge
of guilt with the opulence
and pomp with which he was
surrounded. It would be
easier to live with his own
extravagances if be could
salve his conscience with an
extravagance for God.
I WILL MAKE YOU A
HOUSE
But it was not to be. In a
dream, God told Nathan the
water should be drained earlier in the haying period,
away from the silage area, and extremely dry weather
I’ve noticed in some cases 'later in the summer, it is
the black plastic is flapping quite likely that good quality
in the wind during the fall hay will be scarce and prices
months. This will usually on the increase. It might be
result in larger amounts of good management to get
spoiled silage. yodr supply of hay on hand,
TO DETERMINE or get it lined up, before
HAY NEEDS prices get out of band. We’ve
With the .wet weather (Turn to Page A3i)
Farm Calendar
Today, October 4
KILE - bred ewe,sale, 4-H
horses and Paint horse
show.
Pennsylvania Livestock
Association annual
meeting at the Crossgates
Inn, Carlisle Pike,
Mechanicsburg, 6 p-tn.
Sunday, Octobers
Agriculture Craft Show,
Farm 'Show Building,
Harrisburg, 9 ajn.-* p.m,
KILE-Quarter horse show
National 4-H week, October
Ml,
Prophet that the Lord did not
need or want a "house” from
David. A bouse made with/]
bands was not what was 'i
important to him. Instead,
“the Lord will make you a
house” (7:11). The same
word “house” is being used,
but it is in a different sense
that the Lord is using it ~
Instead of David building
him a house of lumber and
stones, God would make of
David and his family a
“house”, a lineage, a family
line through which God
would bontinue to live. The
Lord lives through people,
not buildings and a house, no
matter how sacred or
reverently* built is not his
home.
Agriculture in Action uay,
Clover Hill, N.J. Rein
date next Sunday.
Monday, October •
KILE-meat Judging and
Arabian bone show.
Hollidaysburg Community
Farm *wsaow,
Hollidaysburg, Continues
through Octobers.
Manhrfm Fair, Manheim.
' Continues through Oc
tober 10.
Heading -Fair, Reading.
Continues through Oc
jTurntoPateAlS