BB—Lancaster tanning, aaturaay, juiy 2,1983
On bet
a farm
-And o
hazar
Joyce B
“All a man needs,” figures a
rural philosopher I recently saw
quoted,” is a pickup truck that
goes, a dependable pocketknife
and a wife who cares.' ’
Our pickup goes.
Mostly it goes to the repair shop.
Latest in a lament list of truck
troubles since the first of the year
was a problem with the brakes.
Brakes - and breaks - have
combined to lay low the most
frequently used piece of equipment
on four wheels on the farm.
First disaster came when the
gear end went kaput a day before
our show entries were due to be
checked in for Farm Show com
petition.
Rescue came in the form of
fellow county Holstein breeder who
made a complete extra round trip
with truck and trailer to haul our
cattle.
Adding insult to injury was the
fact that, just days before, the
truck had undergone one of those
fine-tooth-comb pre-winter
tuneups, anything from plugs and
filters to repairing the faulty gas
gauge.
After a week of gasping in in
tensive care, the truck purred
home in time for the cattle’s return
trip. We won’t even talk about the
flat tire on the loaded trailer on the
trip home.
For just long enough for us to
grow complacent about the truck’s
reliability, it ran uneventfully.
Kour days prior to the next cattle
show, guess what?
Back to the shop we sent, for
major surgery on the tuning. Poor
timing, for sure. Motorwise-and
otherwise. But, put on a rush or
der, the truck recovered just in
time for attachment to the trailer
loaded up for the show.
Not long ago, in the middle of
haylage hauling, when we needed
the truck to lug filled wagons
across the roads from distant
fields, the brakes died. A rush job
this time cost an extra 70 bucks to
guarantee getting parts overnight.
So much for the pickup that goes.
Now, about the dependable
pocketknife.
If all the pocket knifes that have
ever been on this place were laid
end to end, a farm wife still would
never find one handy when she was
confronted with a tightly packed
bale of hay.
Most logical place to look for one
is on the top of the clothes dryer,
where drippy pocket knives are
laid to dry out after their frequent
Rep. Walker conducts meeting
on dairy legislation
LANCASTER Congressman
Bob Walker (E), 16th district, will
conduct an informal meeting
Tuesday, July sth at the Lancaster
baths at the bottom of the washing
machine.
On one hand, we probably have
the cleanest pocket knives around.
On the other, there just isn’t a
whole lot of demand for clean
knives with rusty blades.
In light of the problems with
pickup trucks that don’t go, and
pocket knives that can be
depended on to be in the pocket of
the jeans just thrown in the wash,
maybe we’d best not even pursue
that part about wives who care.
Farm and Home Center to dicuss
dairy legislation. According to a
legislative aide in Washington,
0.C., the purpose of the meeting is
to provide an opportunity to inform
all interested dairy fanners of
pending changes in the national
dairy program.
Rep. Walker will bring with him
two spokesman from Washington,
D.C., who will be available to
answer questions relating to the
Dairy Production Stabilization Act
of 1983.
Ail interested dairy farmers are
urged to attend. The meeting will
begin at 8 p.m. The Farm and
Home Center is located at 1383
Arcadia Road in Lancaster. TW