A22—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 6,1982
After years
BY DONNA TOMMELLEO
NARVON He could take no
more. And finally, one day this
past September, Bob Campbell
stood in his bam and cried.
He cried because of pain. He
cried because of frustration.
But most of all, he cried because
good-byes hurt.
For almost half his life, the 30-
year-old Narvon man battled pain
in both feet. The muscles in his
arches constantly pulled at their
joint attachments, causing a
severe arch and persistant pain.
Last winter, Campbell un
derwent surgery and spent the
early part of 1982 in convalescence.
But when he resumed working
again on his registered Ayrshire
farm, the pain, like chickweed,
was back.
And so on that September day.
“Happy is the man who has a small, high
testing and low feed cost cow. He either has
Jerseys or has bred his Ayrshire right.”
two months ago, Campbell decided
that fighting the pain had robbed
enough precious time from his
herd. He had to get out.
“I believe that a job is worth
doing well or not at all,” he says.
On Dec. 6, at noon, Campbell will
disperse his Penn-Bell herd, a herd
that grew from a young boy’s
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Because of health problems, Bob Cambpell must say goodbye to the life which has
been good to him for almost half of his 30 years. However, the young man admits he
won’t burn his bridges behind him and may someday return to dairy life.
Clowning with “Dot,” one of Bob's favorite four-legged friends, is an everyday oc
curence for the animal-loving Ayrshire breeder. The 6-year-old Ayrshire has contributed
to the Penn-Bell herd’s wet average of 14,200 pounds of milk and 570 pounds of fat. The
herd has remained one of the top 10 of the breed in Pennsylvania since 1977.
of tears, Campbell bids beloved herd farewell
dream into one of the top Ayrshire
herds in the state.
Bob grew up in Blue Ball,
Lancaster County. Not a sprawling
metropolis by any means, yet Bob
and his mother Jean felt just
enough urban pressure to move
their menagerie of sheep, horses,
dogs, cats and fowl to the neigh
boring Narvon countryside.
Campbell’s mother was an ac
tive horsewoman and for years
traveled the show circuit with her
prize Palominos. With the ex
ception of the Campbells’ two draft
horses that Bob occasionally rode,
the youngster did not share his
mother’s equine interest.
“I was always getting dragged to
horse shows,” Bob recalls. “Mom
would tell me, ‘We’ll soon go after
the next class.’”
When he wasn’t spending his
Sundays at horse show ringsides,
Bob looked forward to afternoons
on his grandfather’s dairy farm.
“Grandfather always had a
dairy farm somewhere,” Camp
bell says. In addition, Bob’s
grandfather John S. Ewell owned a
trucking company.
Woodside Stock Farm,
rshires sell next month
LandisviUe, was one such dairy
farm on which Bob spent a great
deal of time with Ewell’s Guernsey
herd.
In his junior year of high school,
the Garden Spot FFA member
kept a pair of Charolais steers and
a few sheep for projects. A
neighbor asked Bob to tend some
dairy heifers and repaid him with a
Jersey heifer.
A few purchases later, Bob in
creased his herd to six. The stable
near
-
The last Ayrshire will leave jm —m ■ jrvon on
Dec. 6 at Bob Campeti's dispersal sale. Although Campbell
and his mother Jean will remain on the farm with their
menagerie of cats, dogs, geese, turkeys, a horse, a racoon,
and other barnyard fowl, they have leased the dairy facilities
to a young couple who will phase the farm from red and white
to black and white. ,
included no stanchions and Bob
tied the animals along the feeding
trough.
“I pulled a vacuum pump behind
me in an express wagon to milk,’'
Campbell remembers.
He also remembers a hot July
day when he decided to take a
break and travel to the mountains
for a short vacation. Fortunately
before he left, Campbell instructed
the hired milker to pasture the
cows at night.
Driving northward, Bob traveled
through a spectacular thun
derstorm, the kind that illuminates
the summer sky with its oh so
dangerous lightening.
That night, lightening struck the
cow stable and Bob returned to a
smoldering foundation. The
animals were spared, but the
young man’s tears that fell could
not replace the hard work he had
put into his growing operation.
Yet his desire to dairy could not
be snuffed. He shook it off when a
supporting relative advised, “If
you have enough money to dairy,
you’re better off putting it in a
bank and live off the interest. ”
•«v.‘
;
His grandad stepped in and
offered to build Bob another bam
but predicted dairying was just a
phase and that eventually Bob
would tire of it and quit.
He was wrong.
Bob rattles off the herd’s ex
pansion with the tempo of well
studied multiplication table.
“Six cows led to 12 which led to
20 which led to 32 which led to 37.
We’re selling 70 head on December
6,” he reports.
“But how do you sell a herd of
Ayrshires you have lived and
breathed for and is your dream
come true? It’s not easy, many
tears,” he explains.
How do you sell cows like Penn-
Bell Caesars Rose. The red, milky
Ayiahnc turned out a lo.'KMl-plus
milk record as a first calt heifer
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and repeated it as a 3-year-old.
"She has to milk. She does it
every time,” Bob says.
And how do you sell other
hallmarks of the Penn-Bell herd,
such as Delchester Count’s Rosina
who has put more than 18,000
pounds of milk through the
pipelines.
In all, the Penn-Bell sale catalog
will feature a herd that has been
among Pennsylvania’s top 10 for
the breed since 1977 and currently
maintains a rolling herd average
of 14,200 pounds of milk and 570
pounds of fat. A celebrity line-up ok
breed sires is represented in th<P
wet herd, such as Hi Kick, Gallant
Man, King "Vue and Meredith
Henry to name a few.
Bob’s fondness for the Scottish
breed of dairy cattle is evident, in
fact, it borders on passion.
“The day of the wild Ayrshire is
gone,’’ he says. “The colored
breeds, as a whole, have
progressed genetically.”
The young man keeps a chalk
board in his bam with a message
that probably best describes his
zealous philosophy.
It reads; “Happy is the man who
has a small, high testing and low
feed cost cow. He either has Jer
seys or has bred his Ayrshire
right.”
But production records aside,
how do you say good-bye to friends
like “Dot.” The big bovine took a
personal liking to Bob and is
usually at his side when he walks
through the pastures or lot, con
stantly nudging for more
A true friend, however, can'4
stand by and watch another get
less than -they deserve, hence
Bob’s decision. His hospital stays
and recovery period saw a dip in
the herd average.
When he was working actively on
the farm, Bob fed the herd three
times daily. The ration included
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