814-Lancasler Fanning, Saturday, September 5, 1987
Ed and Paulie Drexler, left, chat with John and Colleene Werbela of Nelson,
N.Y., before the Werbelas took off on a quick weekend cruise off Long Island.
The Drexlers believe they are the nation’s first farm sitters.
Sitters For Vacationing Farmers
ITHACA, N.Y. It’s easy to
find someone to water your gera
nium and feed your dog while
you’re on vacation. But what if
you also have 300 acres of crops
and 100 cows on a modem farm
with complex milking equipment,
an array of machinery, computer
ized feed formulas and other high
tech wonders?
When bad luck drove Ed and
Paulie Drexler out of dairy farming
two years ago, they remembered
the trouble they had finding some
one to mind their farm when they
were taking a trip in 1980. So they
began a new and successful career:
“farm-sitting,” that is, doing the
daily chores for vacationing
farmers.
The young couple, who live in a
house they built on S 4 wooded
acres in the town of Fabius near
Syracuse, believe that their occu
pation is unique. “As far as we can
tell, no one else has ever heard of
anyone doing what we do as a pro
fession,” Ed Drexler said. “Far
mers might be able to get help from
neighbors for a short period of
time, but it’s tough to find some
one who could fill the void for a
week or two.”
Since the Drexlers became farm
sitters one and a half years ago,
they have worked on numerous
farms in most of the northeastern
states.
“We will milk in Tahiti if some
one there pays our air fare,” Paulie
Drexler quipped in an interview.
“Seriously, we go anywhere.”
Their business is booming.
They are booked solid this summer
and fall, and February 1988
already has been taken, too. Many
people make reservations months
and even a year in advance, Ed
Drexler said.
The Drexlers said that they draw
deep satisfaction from helping
many farmers to make a much
needed escape from their grinding
daily chores. “Every time the
phone rings, it’s exciting because
we know somebody out there
needs us, and we try to schedule
our time to help them get away,”
Ed Drexler said. “When we arrive
at a farm, we get comments such as
‘Where have you been the past 20
years?’”
Paulie Drexler said another rea
son they love farm-sitting is that
“it’s never boring,” because they
work at different farms.
The Drexlers are graduates .of
%
Cornell University, where they
majored in animal science. When
Ed Drexler graduated in 1974, he
went back to his family farm in
Smyrna in Chenango County,
where he was in partnership with
his father. Paulie Drexler joined
him a year later when she gra
duated from Cornell.
The partnership didn’t work out
well. So the Drexells decided to
leave the family farm. For a while,
they worked in Altamont near
Albany as rural real estate agents,
selling hobby farms for city people
who wanted to live in rural areas.
Selling hobby farms was an
interesting job, but “we missed
cows,” he said. In 1978, they
bought their first farm with 62
cows and 200 acres of crop land
in Sl Johnsville in Montgomery
County.
The farm thrived. Within 18
months, the Drexlers boosted their
herd’s average annual milk pro
duction from 14,000 pounds to
18,000. Their herd was designated
the most improved in Montgomery
County for 1980. The Drexlers
also were named as New York
Farm Bureau’s Outstanding
Young Farmers that year.
But because of its poor soil qual
ity, they sold the farm in 1981 and
moved to Pompey near Syracuse,
where they bought a farm with 165
cows and more than 600 acres of
cropland.
As they began expanding the
herd, they ran into “a brick wall,”
as Ed Drexler described it. Some
of the cows they had bought in
Ohio were found to have Johne’s
disease, a bacterial infection that
causes a chronic diarrhea fatal to
afflicted animals.
From then on, it was a losing
battle. “Within six months after we
had bought 37 cows, we lost 27,”
Ed Drexler said. “Eventually, we
had to send every one of our 185
cows to the slaughterhouse for
beef.”
Although the Farm Home
Administration made a generous
offer to help them rebuild their
herd, the couple decided to call it
quits. “A fight against a disease
like that takes all your pizzazz out
of you,” Ed Drexler said. “So we
were right ,back to square one.”
They sold the farm in August
1985 and moved into a house they
built that summer. They limped
along that fall by selling Christmas
trees and firewood from their
* .
A
*
*
property.
That was when the Drexlers
came up with the idea of farm
sitting. In February 1986, they
attended a farm show in Syracuse,
where they handed out mimeo
graphed copies of a simple bro
chure explaining their farm-sitter
service. “Right off the bat, we got
two bookings. That astonished us,”
Paulie Drexler said.
The business soon brought in
more jobs than they could handle.
“The first year, we were turning
down about five to six jobs for
every one we could take,” Ed
Drexler said. “This year, we are
booked 100 percent from the last
week of June to almost
Christmas.”
Their going rate is $lOO per per
son per weekday and $125 on
Saturdays and Sundays. It’s $l2 an
hour if the job involves only tem
porary field work.
“If everything goes okay on a
farm, anybody can come in and do
it, but that isn’t the case. Those
who hire us are paying for insur
ance the unexpected, not the
routine work,” Ed Drexler said.
On one occasion, for example,
silos ran out of feed for the dairy
animals. “The feeding program got
shot to heck,” Paulie Drexler
recalled. “We had to use what
knowledge we had and come up
with a balanced ration fast; we had
to readjust, among other things,
protein levels for individual cows.
When the owner came back, he
found out that we were producing
as much milk as when he had left
The bulk tank never lost a pound of
milk,” she said.
Fanners who have hired the
Drexlers as farm sitters are happy
with the quality of their work. Bill
and Marilyn Bird of Asbury, N.J.,
wrote: “Everything was great. We
can’t think of any way to
improve.” A New York farmer,
Stanley Connelly of Virgil, com
mented, “W,e were pleased with
your services. The com is coming
along fine now. You helped a lot.”
Spine of the agricultural agents
of Cornell Cooperative Extension
are enthusiastic about the farm
sitter service, too. Kathryn A. Dax
endell, a dairy agent with Coopera
tive Extension of Onondaga Coun
ty, called the farm-sitting a
“fabulous idea,” saying that far
mers need people who are compe
tent to run their farms while they
(Turn to Page B 16)
See your nearest
fSEW HOLLAND
Dealer for Dependable
Equipment and Dependable
Service:
Annville, PA
BHM Farm
Equipment, Inc
RD. 1
717-867-2211
Beavcrtown, PA
B&R Farm
Equipment, Inc.
RD 1. Box 217 A
717-658-7024
Belleville, PA
Ivan J. Zook
Farm Equipment
Belleville, Pa
717-935-2948
Canton, PA
Hess Farm Equipment
717-673-5143
Carlisle, PA
Paul Shovers, Inc
35 East Willow Street
717-243-2686
Chambersburg, PA
Clugston
Implement, Inc
RD 1
717-263-4103
Davldsburg, PA
George N Gross, Inc
R D. 2, Dover, PA
717-292-1673
Elizabethtown, PA
Messick Farm
Equipment, Inc
Rt. 283 - Rheem's Exit
717-367-1319
Gettysburg, PA
Yingling Implements,
Inc.
3291 Taneytown Rd.
717-359-4848
Greencastle, PA
Meyers
Implement's Inc
400 N Antrim Way
P.O Box 97
717-597-2176
Halifax, PA
Sweigard Bros
RD. 3, Box 13
717-896-3414
Hamburg, PA
Shartlesville
Farm Service
RD. 1, Box 1392
215-488-1025
Hanover, PA
.Sheets Brothers, Inc
1061 Carlisle St
Hanover, PA 17331
717-632-3660
Honey Brook, PA
Dependable Motor Co.
East Mam Street
215-273-3131
215-273-3737
Honey Grove, PA
Norman D Clark
& Son, Inc
Honey Grove, PA
717-734-3682
Hughecvllle, PA
Farnsworth Farm
Supplies, Inc
103 Cemetery Street
717-584-2106
Lancaster, PA
L H Brubaker, Inc
350 Strasburg Pike
717-397-5179
Lebanon, PA
Keller Bros
Tractor Co
RD 7, Box 405
717-94^-6501
Loyavllle, PA
Paul Shovers, Inc
Loysville, PA
717-789-3117
Lynnport, PA
Kermit K. Kistler, Inc
Lynnport, PA
215-298-2011
Mill Hall, PA
Dotterer Equip
RO #3
717-726-3471
New Holland, PA
A.B.C. Groff, Inc.
110 South Railroad
717-354-4191
New Park, PA
M&R Equipment Inc
PO. Box 16
717-993-2511
Oley, PA
C J. Wonsidler Bros
RD 2
215-987-6257
Pitman, PA
Marlin W Schretfler
Pitman, PA
717-648-1120
Quakertown, PA
C.J Wonsidler Bros
RD 1
215-536-1935
Quarryville, PA
C E Wiley & Son, Inc
101 South Lime Street
717-786-2895
Rlngtown, PA
Rmgtown Farm
Equipment
Rlngtown, PA
717-889-3184
Tamaqua, PA
Charles S Snyder, Inc
R.D. 3
717-386-5954
West Grove, PA
S G Lewis & Son, Inc
R D 2, Box 66
215-869-2214
Churchvllle, MD
Walter G Coale, Inc
2849-53
Churchvllle Rd
301-734-7722
Frederick, MD
Ceresville
Ford New Holland, Inc
Rt 26 East
301-662-4197
Outside MD,
800-331-9122
Washington, NJ
Frank Rymon & Sons
201-689-1464
Woodatown, NJ
Owen Supply Co
Broad Street &
East Avenue
609-769-0308