BIS-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 15,1986
On being £*
a farm
-And other^
Joyce Bnpp
“Geese! Geese!” I run,
shrieking, into the dairy bam.
Cynical due to my advancing
age,- as I am constantly reminded
by a pair of teenagers -1 don’t run,
shrieking, about too many things
any longer.
But geese? After a February
packed in wall-to-wall clouds and
dreariness, who wouldn’t thrill to
the faint, haunting honking, and a
ragged, lopsided, “V” of floating
shapes against a gray, early
morning sky.
Spring? It starts this week, says
the calendar. Announcement by
geese is far more romantic than
announcement via a terse phrase
on a page of methodical square
numbered blocks.
But this announcement by air is
merely a symbol of seasonal
restlessness. Time to be out and
about, to let morning sunlight wash
over the kitchen through the dusty
stormdoor glass and rejoice in a
gentle warm breeze.
The cats, too, are enjoying this
peek at spring fever, rolling in the
thick sawdust that mulches the
floral border. Nature handled this
mulch job, spreading the once-neat
pile of wood residue over the
farmstead by way of a wicked
West wind that swept across the
place like a prairie fire.
While the tulips are struggling
up through the thick insulation,
and the felines figure it was put
there for their sole lounging
pleasure under the remains of last
year’s chrysanthemum plants, I
see the sawdust layer as a barrier
to the April showers that are
supposed to bring later return in
blossoms. Off it must come.
The farmer stops by the house
and insists he heard a robin singing
somewhere. No fair - you have to
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see the robin for it to count in the
spring-sights countdown.
Mom beat him already. She
spied a large flock - like several
dozen - of the feathered harbingers
fresh in from the tropics on a
morning that could best be
described as chilly, gray and
wintry.
Sort of makes you feel that you
ought to rewrite that old cliche:
“The early bird gets frostbite.”
And muddy feet. For if spring
brings the soft, fuzzy-gray
pussywillows back on the bush so
high I can’t reach the best cutting
stems, and a yellow cast to the
willows storing up golden sun
shine, and green spots dotting the
bare, brown roadbank littered with
old ugly leaves, likewise it brings
mud.
Mud tracked through the milk
house, just hosed down to
sparkling concrete that would
make the milk inspector proud.
Mud tracked into the car carpet,
where it breeds and reproduces
like fungus to coat the rubber floor
mats and burrow into carpet coils,
never to be removed. Mud tracked
across the basement indoor
outdoor floor covering, around the
freezer and washing machine, up
the stairs, through kitchen, living
room, office, and wherever busy
feet travel.
I long ago came to grips with
mud. Mud does not freeze up cattle
watering fountains, cause car and
tractor batteries to roll over and
play dead, nor send you skidding
down a hill as you round a cold
corner and hit a patch hiding in a
shady spot on the pavement. Mud
is a seasonal inconvenience,
traded off for the likes of robins
bursting in song and geese honking
toward Canada.
NJ FFA Fewer shew, design contest set ter March 20
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ - The
New Jersey FFA is gearing up for
the State Flower Show and Floral
Design Contest on March 20 at the
Quakerbridge Mall in Law
renceville.
This contest is to encourage high
school FFA members to develop
skills in floriculture. The students’
work will be on display at the mall
on Thursday, March 20 through
Saturday, March 22.
The Floral Design Contest is
open to a team of four from each
FFA chapter in New Jersey. This
contest is sponsored by the New
Jersey Florist’s Association.
Students will design a freestyle
arrangement and an assigned
And, our Eastern Shore farm
friends surely rejoice, as do we, in
the flight of the long-necked
departing, feathered messengers
of spring. For it is on their fields of
tender shoots of wheat and barley
that these spectacular, almost
mystical, birds winter and grow
fat for their long journey North. In
return, they leave bare patches of
field, covered amply with thank
you’s of nitrogen rich droppings -
but reduced yields of grain. Good
for the soils - but hard on cash-flow
economics.
To them, we say a hearty
“Thanks” for fattening our V
formation spring announcement.
And what is symbolic to us, must
surely be good riddance from their
point of view.
updos,
parts and service.
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* New - Rebuilt - Exchange
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arrangement, such as a cen- nove ity arrangements. Wreaths,
terpiece or symmetrical triangle, corsages, hanging baskets,
Students also compete in the State planters and dish garden classes
FFA Flower Show while at the are included for student com
nisll* petition.
Twenty-eight classes of floral All arrangements and designs
arrangements are open to the FFA are prepared prior to the show,
students. The show includes Designs are entered on Thursday
classes of silk and fresh designs of f or judging and remain on display
holiday, spring, wedding, and at the mall until Saturday evening.
Conrad Weiser FFA
Berks County FFA members
competed in the annual County
Public Speaking Contest at the
Berks County Intermediate Unit on
Feb. 24. FFA members could enter
conservation, general prepared,
and the FFA creed contests.
Five members of the Conrad
Weiser FFA participated in these
contests. Eight FFA members
competed in the Conservation
Division. Kay Fessler, a
sophomore, placed second with her
speech, entitled “There is No
Longer Pure Rain.”
Centre County Dairy Club
The Centre County 4-H Dairy
Club elected officers during its
Feb. 28 meeting.
The new officers are: James
Houser, president; Eric Stine, vice
president; Todd Homan,
secretary; Lori Houser, treasurer;
Chad Homan, recreation leader:
We
cialize
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Locust fence post sawed,
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New Smidley covered
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Fourteen FFA members com
peted in the General Prepared
Contest. Becky Sonnen, also a
sophomore, placed first with her
speech entitled “Mastitis-Money
Down the Drain.”
And, in the FFA Creed Contest
Kirk Sattazahn, a freshman,
placed first; Brenda McFarland, a
freshman, placed third; and Karen
Fessler, also a freshman, placed
fifth.
The top three places in each
division go on to Area Contest
Competition, on April 16th.
Eon Gilligan, historian; Joy Gates,
news reporter; Joyce Harpster,
parliamentarian; and Martha
Hartle, county council.
Leaders are Nancy Kocher,
Joseph Hartle, Jay Houser, Boyd
Homan, and Jeff Harding. Junior
leaders are Betsy Dupuis and Judy
Vonada.
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