D34—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 4,1983
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BY ROBIN PHILLIPS
Staff Correspondent
MEADVILLE - What would the
odds be on a young couple with no
farming experience, moving from
the Baltimore-Annapohs urban
sprawl of Maryland to a remote
area in Western Pennsylvania,
start dairy farming on a “whim”?
Would they be able to pay all of
their bills on time?
Would they be able to manage
and feed a herd of Jersey cows and
have them produce profitably?
Would they be able to understand
the economics of getting cows bred
back on time?
Could they raise healthy herd
replacements?
And, would they be able to
redesign and remodel an old dairy
barn into an efficient, modern day
set-up?
Meet Dave and Donna Reusing
and their daughters, Lasa, 16, and
Amy, the youngest of the Reusing clan, is in charge of
chickens and receives egg money in return.
New milk house has been added to front of barn. Wood silo will become the barn office
and will feature hexagonal windows.
city family make it in dairying?
Amy, 8, of New Hope Farm, R 5,
Meadville. They are “all of the
above” and love their new
lifestyle.
“We set off from Maryland to go
homesteading,” Reusing says with
a smile, and “one thing lead to
another.”
A successful contractor in
Maryland in partnership with his
father, Reusing explained that
they felt that the population was
closing in on them in their former
location and their business was no
longer the driving force in their
lives. Reusing says that one day
his father said “he was going to
retire, so 1 thought that if he is
going to, so am I.” After
liquidating the contracting
business and selling their former
homes, the elder Reusing as well
as his son, Dave, began looking for
a farm.
Remembering back to 1980 when
They sure can!
The Reusing family of New Hope Farm stands in front of new milk house that was built
by Dave.
they first moved to their farm,
Reusing states that they planned to
be self-sufficient in their new home
and eagerly anticipated the
country atmosphere of rural
Pennsylvania. Although they
completely remodeled their new
“homestead” home of 100 years of
age and enjoyed raising chickens
and ducks on their 25 acres, they
“began going ‘stir crazy’ for
something to do”, Reusing says.
So, although the Reusing family
"never even planted a garden”,
they met a neighbor who they refer
to as their “resident agronomist”
and took all his advice offered.
Through his help, the family
learned about gardening and crops
and began to entertain the notion of
growing enough feed on their
acreage for their growing number
of animals.
In addition to their "neighborly
lessons on agronomy”, the
Keusmgs began to purchase their
milk from Spruce Row Farms
jugging operation owned by
Charles Hotson. Stating that at
first he just “nosed around out of
curiosity”, Reusing began to help
out at the farm a bit and developed
a fondness for those “broad
backed Jersey cows”, while at the
same tune learning some of the
basics of dairy farming.
“She wanted the family milk
cow, but she didn’t want me to milk
cows”, Reusing said of his wife.
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Donna Reusing has chief chore of calf feeding. They are
placed in hutches right after birth, but dam is hand milked to
feed calf immediately.
Dave Reusing now enjoys milking with new pipline system
that was recently installed.