On being ** a farm wi -And Joyce Bnpp “How can you tell them apart?” “They all look alike to me.” That pair of back-to-back com ments has been repeated countless times by non-dairy-farmer friends and acquaintances who stop to vis it our Holstein cows and heifers. And I’ve been guilty of the same glib observation of the flock of friendly ewes belonging to close friends. All those soft, woolly bodies do look alike to me at first glance, but their owners can spot individuals at some distance. Our splotchy black-and-white Holsteins are bom with their own permanent, personal markings, “hide-dyed” you might call it Cow markings are like clouds every one sees something different in the LAND PRIDE ("PENNSYLVANIA 1 Plkeville Equipment Inc. Norman D. Clark & Caldwell Tractor & RD 2, Oysterdale Road Son, Inc. Equipment, Inc. Oley, PA 19547 Honey Grove, PA 430 U.S. Route 46 215-987-6277 717-734-3682 Fairfield, N.J. 07006 201-227-6772 •taarry Equipment Co. RD 2, Rt. 61, 3 Miles S. of Leespon Reading, PA 215-626-2441 Keller Brothers R 7 Box 405 Lebanon, PA 17042 717-949-6501 1 950 Fruitville Pike Lancaster. PA 717-569-2500 Stoltzfus Farm Service Cochranville, PA 717-593-2407 | NEW JERSEY" Marshal p 0^ ch j?® rv ' lnc - Owen Supply Co. NewHoHand HonsS dj M.S.Yearsley & Sons East Avenue & Broad St. 2836 Brunswick Pike ale, pa 18431 West Chester, PA Woodstown, N.J. 08098 Trenton, N.J 08648 <l7-729-7117 215-696-2990 609-769-0308 609-883-7360 shapes. What looks like the shape of Australia to me might resemble a dinosaur to you. We’ve had cows with markings suggestive of everything from hearts to butterflies, a cloverleaf or the strung out islands of the Bering Sea. Somewhere a cow with the shape of Lancaster County once turned up. And Disney World is the home of a Holstein with Mick ey Mouse’s head on her left side. To complete registry certificates for a calf, her markings have to be sketched off on the application - a sketch for each side and for the face as well. And while a calf will happily stand in one spot and chew on your pocket as long as you might let it, that same animal Tractor Parts Co. Rodio Tractor Sales 335 Central Road North White Horse Pike Bloomsburg, PA 17815 , _ _ , , Hammonton, N.J. 08037 'warasiu: «•«"' Dover, PA 17315 717-292*2631 Stouftor Bros. Inc. 1066 Lincoln Way West Chambersburg, PA 17201 717-263-8424 lunges into perpetual motion the instant it senses that your attention is focused solely on H. Multiply that activity in a pen of a couple dozen lively heifers, sev eral of which will want to lick your elbows, nibble at your clipboard and devise a contest to see who can be the first to inflict you with butts and bruises. Add a cold chill which freezes your drawing fingers. Then divide the available light at least in half because the calf you want will scoot into the darkest corner in which to try eluding you. And so you have the basic sce nario into which I recently plunged to sketch off four calves in a large group pen. These four had slipped past my usual registry timetable and been “graduated” out of the smaller, weaned grouping in which sketching goes considerably easier. You move slowly here, working your way near the subject, trying to shoo away the friendly, curious pets (pests?) crowding in behind to sniff at you. With the edge of your clipboard, you nudge away the friends of the subject, like frontier wagons circling her against your attack. Just when you have a clear view, she charges past, races around to the other side of the pen and slips smack into the middle of a pack of Loysville, PA 717-789-3117 I.G. Sales & Service Box 200, Silverdale, PA 18962 215-257-5136 Frank Rymon & Sons, RD 3, Box 355 Washington, N.J. 07882 201-689-1464 Reed Brothers Petticoat Bridge Rd. Columbus, N.J. 08022 609-267-3363 black and white bodies feeding at the hayrack. And, since you need to check her eartag to make sure you have the right calf, she doubles that ear in and tucks her head between four close friends in line backer defense formation. By now the whole group is in stampede mode, racing around the pen, kicking their heels much too close to your knees. And the sub ject KNOWS you are prowling her alone, and keeps one eye on you while she gallops past, heading off to yet another comer. Meanwhile, in surprise and pain you fend off with your clipboard the umpteenth attack from the rear by a heifer, head-down and play fully ramming your posterior. As As they tour the Pennsylvania Farm Show, Peggy Wolff, wife of Sec. of Agriculture Boyd Wolff, right, enjoys a laugh with Ellen Casey, wife of Gov. Casey. Saving Place OPEN HOUSE January 27 - February 1 ... Machinery Display Every Day ... Used Equipment Sale ... New Equipment Sale ... Special Parts Sale LOOK FOR DETAILS IN NEXT WEEK’S ISSUE Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 1«, 1992-63 she gleefully dances away, you read the name on her tag—Scamp and ruefully note that for once in your calf-naming career you have named an animal most appro priately to her personality. Breathless from pursuit, splat tered with manure, soggy where you’ve been chewed on, and with s6re foot from being run over, you will with persistence finally get your sketch. You may, however, ruin a perfectly good clipboard. But you know, our friends are right. Piled together in a comer, or stampeding to the opposite side of a pen, heads and tails flying, those black-and-white blurs do all look alike. ANNUAL
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers