Onbei a farm -And a bazar Joyce B “Look at this,” said The Farmer one morning last fall, displaying a highly-unusual “find.” The grisly thing he dangled before my eyes looked like some thing out of a Stephen B. King horror flick. Hollow eye sockets stared blankly from a roundish, beige skull. And attached to the skull was a ragged-looking, stiff and misshapen skeletal system. But rather than revulsion, the sorry-looking specimen instead brought us sorrow and disappoint ment. A few large, brownish marked feathers still clinging to the skeletal structure, plus much smaller and finer feathering near the taloned feet, testified that these remains had once been a proud bird of prey. But what? Hawk? Or owl? The remains had come out of one of the silos with the morning’s running of corn silage for the cattle. Hawks don’t generally hang around the interior of silos where they could meet such an untimely end in a winter’s supply of cattle forage. But, bam owls find the lofty reaches of farm silos the bird world equivalent of a penthouse suite. And we’ve known of bam owls hanging around the silos off and on for several years. Compar ing clues from the remains with Stop climbing your silo so often. Invest in a new HANSON Sb Unloader. ☆ PROMOTION ☆ FREE Unloader Control Box plus a Discount Days special. BUY WHERE YOU CAN GET SERVICE. Discounts on replacement -Hilhiilfi parte f° r Van Dale, Clay, & WWil Supreme unloaders. f* AflA **lo COMPANY TMu2/ ch (Mhnmxji) descriptions .in our birding books, we concluded that the skeletal remains were indeed those of a bam owl, We feel particularly honored - and with a sense of responsibility toward them - when varying spe cies of birds and wildlife choose to share our territory, especially those that might be somewhat endangered. The dozen-plus bluebird houses scattered over the property, the mid-pond goose nest platform that lured in our first hatching pair of Canada geese last year, and a pair of marlin houses near the ponds offer housing to local and trans ient feathered friends. A variety of bird feeders around the yard caters to their appetites. Now, inadver tently, we may have set up an owl feeder of sorts. We first heard the classic “Whoooo, whoooo” of a Great Homed owl (we think) last fall, just about the same time the bam owl skeleton turned up in the feed conveyor system. A coincidence, no doubt. The haunting sound was right overhead in the old maples, but half-asleep, at midnight, 1 failed to hop out of bed and go looking for this unusual visitor. A few nights later, though, the deep-throated call sounded again just outside the house. Flashlight in hand, I stalked to the comer of the front porch foto a cold night, aimed the glow toward a tree and a wide winged shadow sailed away over the back yard. “Dummy!” I growled at myself. “Now you’ve scared it off.” But on a brilliantly moonlight ' night shortly after, as I headed to the house after milking, the dark, wide-winged shape sailed back into the yard, landing near the top of the towering old pine tree. The large bird remained there long enough for me to run back to the bam office, rush back with The -aimer in tow, and watch the dark shape glide back off into the glow ing night. Why would this large owl sud denly move in? Just below the house and near the ponds is a stack of large, round hay bales. Mice make themselves right at home among the bales, which provide shelter and provisions during the cold months. So the cats daily stalk the bales, and foxes are fre quent visitors at more distant stor age stacks. Owls, apparently, come to the big-bale mice buffet, too. A large, oblong, one-side-open plywood box sits in the basement, neatly stenciled with the words “Bam Owls Only.” This wonder ful gift from close friends is designed to be located inside the uppermost comer of a bam where it faces an open meadow. An opening cut into the bam allows the owls entry into the nesting box, designed with a sturdy door for cleanout and reinforcement against nest-robber raccoons. Maybe next time The Farmer comes with a “look at this” owl surprise, it will be to point out a real live one moving in. IMulch young trees and shrubs with well-rotted manure, leaves, wood chips or peat moss. “Open House” where you really save money. February sth5 th & 6 th Potomac Valley Supply Hagerstown, MD 301-223-6877 10% Discount on all Parts. Cash and Carry Equipment Promotions The at Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 26, 1991-815 Facts About Rubber Bands Here are some facts about rub ber bands that may stretch your imagination. Did you know that; • The United States govern ment has 10 pages of specifica tions for standard rubber bands, including a requirement that tensil (breaking) strength be 1,200 pounds per square inch. One man ufacturer, Arrow Rubber Products of Shelton, Connecticut, produces bands that require more than twice that strength to break. Arrow’s bands exceed 3,000 pounds of ten sile strength per square inch and stretch to more than seven times their original length. • Pure, natural rubber gives a better snap than synthetic mater ials that don’t provide quality. Poor quality bands don’t snap back to their original size and don’t last as long. • Arrow Rubber only uses important natural rubber from Southeast Asia to make its bands rubber right from the tree. The tree, Hevea brasihenis, is tapped just like trees in New England are tapped for maple syrup. A thin layer of bark is removed allowing the raw latex to drip into a cup for about three or four hours. The liq uid is then coagulated and pro- Encourage Children To Read Did you know that of the 42 million children in the United States two out of three cannot read, won’t read or hate to read. Schools spend a tremendous amount of time and energy teach ing children to read. But the prim ary problem is that parents, teach ers and child care providers have forgotten to teach children to want to read. Desire is not something children are bom with. It is a seed planted early in a child. The adult plants this seed by reading to the MILK. IT'S FITNESS YOU CAN DRINK. MIDDLE ATLANTIC MILK MARKETING ASSOCIATION cessed into bales that are shipped to manufacturers elsewhere in the world. • The largest bands made by Arrow are about six inches in diameter and will stretch to go around 55 gallon steel drums. The smallest have a diameter of just 90 thousandths of an inch. • Rubber bands have many industrial uses. They’re used to manufacture golf balls - holding the ball as a machine wraps elastic around a core. Rubber bands are also used to manufacture aero space equipment and by photogra phers for extra grip on stuck tripod knobs. • High quality rubber bands are needed to hold the ropes in a para chute (called shroud lines) to make sure the chute opens as it should when someone jumps from a plane. • Christopher Columbus first observed people native to Haiti playing a game with a ball fash ioned from smoked-dried latex. Today, rubber and rubber bands are in use everywhere, from sling shots to orthodontial works, hold ing lobster claws,in toys and even for grooming horses. child and introducing the child to the joy and excitement that comes from books. Children learn through imita tion. They imitate the adults in their environment. Between the ages of two and five imitation is at its greatest. If children see adults reading they will come to view reading as comelhing good and desirable. Encourage a child’s desire to read by: • Begin reading to a child as soon as possible. Use large picture books and Mother Goose rhymes for infants and toddlers. Increase the complexity of the books as the child grows and the attendon span lengthens. • have a special time every day for stories, perhaps before nap lime. • Use plenty of expression. Change your tone of voice to fit the story. • Make story time special. Occasionally try something new (a stuffed toy, a felt character from the story) to add interest and excitement.
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