The Berks County Executive Board met Nov, 3 at the Ag Center and the new officers presided at the meeting. They are; Mary Fizz, president; Janet Schlegel, vice president; and Darlene Yost. ON RODENT CONTROL IfV/fU RODENTS carry diseases which can endanger the health of your poultry flocks. Your business is raising them. Ours is protecting them. We Specialize In Sanitizing And Disinfecting Since 1928 Petit control is too important to trust to anyone elsS Jake, 1986 is coming to an end. there’s no Investment Tax iredit this year. Ooh! You don’t get ahead of them fellas for giving their customers the best buys! I can’t wait to see that special yellow insert in the December 6tlJ " issue of Lancaster Farming, j 133 Rottisville Station Rd., Lititz, PA 17543 JjJlfl 1 located *2 Mile North of Rothsville BROS INC (717) 626-4705 | MVIWW - * w - H our s: Mon.-Fri, 7AM - 5 PM; Sat 7AM -11 ■3O AM „ Sun. Closed - lord’s Day SAI.KS PARTS SKRVICK , . j Berks County Executive Board secretary. The State Farm Women Con vention will be held Jan. 12 and 13 in conjunction with the Farm Show. June Beck of Group 12, will be running for state Houses Lancaster, PA 3973721 Lewistown, PA 2480983 State Colie! ;e, PA 2377607 Don’t you worry about that, Luke. NKLEY & HURST BROS, are burning the tdnight oil getting ready for their ANNUAL ISCOUNT CASH & CARRY DAYS SALE. * . Bth thru Dec. 31st. And CASE IH replaced ax Credit with up to $lO,OOO in CASH-BACK ■ CHECKS LP* ■■ ** j KEROSENE HEATERS and FANS Reg. $349 WICKLESS HEATERS NOW . A , A On Sale *219 »«• - PUSH A BUTTON - GET INSTANT HEAT 22.600 BTU CORONA WICK HEA •11 • Reg. $lB9 • Burns 15 Houi • Heats 800 sq. 4SJUJUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULC & LARGE VARIETY OF WICKS IN STOCK P LEOLA FIREPLACE 93 W. Mom St., Lmld, PA • At. 23 A 772 • 6 Mi. E. of Lancostor Luke, where else can you have food, fellowship and save money at the same time! secretary Total Farm Women membership in Berks County numbers 213. The board will meet next on Jan 5. * Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 29,1986-B5 On being v ~ a farm wife -And otbe^^^^^nl <* Joyce Bnpp Because it’s there. That’s the reason people often offer for attempting dangerous, challenging, exciting feats. Why did you sail alone across the storm-tossed Pacific...swim the chilly English Channel...climb the jagged icy peaks of Mount Everest? Because it’s there, of course. The only thing I can safely sail is the frisbee, and my swim preference is poolside or Eastern shore beaches, and mountain climbing is for goats. So why am I here, high atop the craggy cliffs of this jagged pile of hay? Because its here. Wrong. Because I failed to con someone else into that chore we call getting down hay for the heifers. This particular mow holds hay for our baby calves and weanlings. It’s handily dropped through a hole in the floor to the feed ally below on the bank barn’s ground floor. But first, someone must scale the hay heights and pry it loose. I say “pry” because this mow at least the top part is randomly stacked with the bales stored pretty much just as they fall from the elevator and topple into a pile. This method saves someone from facing heat exhaustion by stacking bales neatly under a sun-baked tin roof in mid-August. But the retrieval process is like playing a giant game of pickup sticks with heavy bales for sticks. Random stacked bales protrude unevenly from the pile in all directions, often squashed beyond bale-shape recognition, looking more like loosely-tied lumps. But rarely does a protruding edge offer a handy section of string for pulling the lump from the stack. And, grabbing a corner of the hay itself generally leaves one with little more than a sparse handful of dried stems. Thus, one must scale the sides of the ragged pile, scamper to the tiptop with the pigeon residue and toss dusty bales down to the floor below. One law of random-stacked hay mows is that the same bale which refused to budge with repeated tugs will suddenly let loose when used instead as a ladder. The resulting avalanche will effectively get down bales, but leave your body colorful with black and blue bruises. And, like snow or glacial packs on lofty mountain peaks, a haymow climber must be ever aware of crevasses. It is not un common in random hay stacks to gingerly insert a foot between two mashed bales and have that entire leg totally disapper into a bot tomless crevass. This is not only painful and embarrassing, but somewhat scary. I have had nightmares of totally vanishing into a giant haymow crevass and not being found until the last dusty bales are fed come spring. Long ago, I learned not to take the clever shortcut of opening the hay hole and trying to throw the bales through it from the top. Even a bale jammed so tightly in the hole that the farmer couldn’t pry it loose, will let go and fall through to the cement below under the weight of a farm wife scrambling over it to safety on the adjacent barn floor. However, even neatly stacked ■haymows offer their own brand of adventure. On occasion, the entire exposed cliff-like face of a stack of bales has been known to let loose and crash to the floor, leaving behind smashed nests of bantam eggs, a terrified mouse or two, and likely one grumbling, hay-coated farm wife buried in the pile. One only needs one such incident of carelessly being near the front of such a stack when it splits off like an iceburg calving off a glacier to remember that haymow lesson. Perhaps farm wives’ work contracts should include a “dangerous mission” clause which we could invoke to cover dangerous chores done out of necessity and not “just because they’re there.”
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers