AlO-Lancasttr Firming, Saturday, Ftbruary 1, 1992 OPINION Safety With Animals Farm animals require proper care and management. Acci dents associated with caring for and handling farm animals can hurt both people and animals, and cut into profits. Protect your self by thinking safety each time you enter places where ani mals are kept. • Wear protective clothing, footwear, gloves and headgear as the job demands. • Provide good footing for handling operations. Keep floors and ramps clean and clutterfree. • Train all workers in safe livestock handling. • Have adequate restraining and handling facilities and equipment. • Leave yourself an “out”, • Be careful with animals that are frightened, hurt, sick or have young. Be cautious around strange animals. Handle males, especially bulls, with respect. • When treating or caring for sick or birthing animals, wear rubber gloves and other needed protective garb. Don’t smoke or eat until you’ve washed and changed contaminated clothing. Practice good sanitation. Protect yourself and others from animal-borne diseases (zoonoses) such as undulant fever, teta nus, salmonella, rabies and leptospirosis. Inoculate pets. • Use the appropriate respirator when working in confined housing to protect against organic dusts and other air pollut ants, and when performing maintenance or cleaning jobs which cause dust. Use a self-contained breathing device when enter ing confined spaces where toxic gases may be present. Venti late such spaces as much as possible before entering. • Protect children by keeping them out of animal facilities, bins, silos and other hazardous areas. Be safety-conscious when working with animals. Farm Calendar Saturday, Fehru;ir> I Delmarva Equine Seminar, Chesa peake Community College. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Ephrata Area Young Farmer’s Association annual banquet, Mt. Airy Fire Hall. Chester 4-H livestock banquet, Devereaux Soleil Farms, Glen moore, 6:30 p.m. Kidding Seminar, Delaware Val ley Milk Goat Association, Boyertown Borough Hall, Boy ertown, 1:30 p.m. Mercer County pesticide core update, extension office, 9 a.m.-noon. 27th annual Penn-Del ISA Shade Tree Symposium, Hershey Lodge and Convention Center, Hershey. PDA pesticide applicator testing, York Pleasant Acres, 8 a.m.-noon. Dairy Herd Reproductive Work shop, UNILEC Building, Dußois, 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m., repeats Feb. 10. Keystone Cornucopia, Harrisburg Hilton, 6 p.m. Lancaster Farming Established 1955 Published Every Saturday Ephrata Review Building 1 E. Main St Ephrata, PA 17522 by Lancaster Farming, Inc. A Stoinrmn Entmpri »• Robert G. Campbell General Manager Everett R. Newtwanger Managing Editor CsFyHgbt INI by Lm castor Farming Farm Income Tax Review and Update, Huntingdon'Extension Office, 1 p.m.-3 p.m. Clearfield Co. Conservation Dis trict Multi-Service Center, ■DBSSfISBBDII Genetics Workshop, Rostraver Grange. York Co. Soil Fertility Workshop, Pleasant Acres, 7:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m. Capitol Region Turf/Omamental School, Farm Show Complex, thru Feb. 5. Part-Time Farming for Profit, UNILEC Building, Dußois, 7 p.m.-9 p.m., repeats Feb. 11, 18, and March 3. Beef Evaluation Evening, Midway Diner, Reading, 5:30 p.m. Lancaster Co. Cattle Feeder’s Day, Farm and Home Center, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. South Jersey 1992 Dairy Confer ence and Trade Show, Elmer Grange Hall, 6:45 p.m.-l 1 p.m. Pennsylvania Young Farmer Association Winter Confer ence, Holiday Inn, Grantville, thru Feb. 6. Mercer Co. Pasture Workshop, gov, i wish those SCI^NTI9TS> COULD COft\£ UP WITH A <3OOO INSECTICIDE FOR. THE... ED £=D EZ D 0 60 * SO NOW IS THE TIME By John Schwartz Lancaster County Agricultural Agent To Protect Electronic Equipment The past several years has seen a big increase in the use of electronic equipment on the farm. Many farmers are using compu ters and do not even know it Com puters are monitoring the environ ment in poultry and swine houses by controlling the fans, heaters, and even the curtains. Feeders are being controlled by computers. With this increase use of electronic components, farmers need to be concerned about pro tecting this equipment from power surges, spikes, and noise. The equipment to protect your electronic components is relatively inexpensive compared to the cost of replacing damaged computers and other electronic devices. You should be looking for surge protec tion that will handle at least 210 joules (amount of energy device will handle before it fails), response time of less than or equal to 1 nanosecond, EMI/RFI filter ing, multistage layer of defense (at least 3), and maximum clamping rating of 330 volts (maximum vol tage allowed to get through the device). By providing adequate surge and noise protection now, you will be helping to prevent a major repair bill in the future. To Follow Withdrawal Times Drug residues continue to be a major consumer food safety issue. To maintain consumer confi dence in our food products, we must make sure all antibiotics are used correctly. Today’s testing procedures are able to detect smaller and smaller traces of drug residues. If you must use an antibiotic, make sure you Extension Center, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Ohio Fruit and Vegetable Grow- Vegetable Washingtonville. Dairy Breeding Workshop, Rostraver Grange. Bucks-Montgomery Dairy Day, Family Heritage Restaurant, (Turn to Pag* A 39) 6 ED 0 3 _ 0 o , ED - ( read the label and follow all directions. The keys are: make sure the drug is licensed for the animal vou are treating, the proper dosage is used, and withdrawal time is fol lowed. Keep a written record of the animal treated, lot number and name of drug used, dosage given, and dates and times the drug was administrated. By using antibiotics only when needed, in the proper dosage, and following withdrawal times, we arc helping to protect our markets. All it takes is one misuse of drugs or chemicals to cause people to stop buying your product and cre ate large economic loses. Difficult economic times, like we are now experiencing, force the best to become better and the good to go out of business. This is espe cially true in our highly competi tive agricultural industry. ■ ’ . A KIN, | A, A 1 .Hi ,1 Background Scripture: Luke 10:25-37. Devotional Reading: Matthew 22:34-46. Have you ever noticed that the parables that Jesus tells se.am to have nothing to do with what peo ple believe? The parables always teach us how to live our daily lives. Yet, very often these very practical et things on how to live have a great deal to do with what vwe believe. This is what we see in the Para ble of the Good Samaritan. It begins with a question about belief from a lawyer or scribe - one learned in the religious law: “Teacher, what shall 1 do to inherit eternal life?" Luke tells us that he did this “to put him to the test." He hoped that Jesus would give an unorthodox answer that would spark a doctrinal argument But Jesus refused to be trapped and turned the question back on the scribe: “What is written in the law? How do you read?” Anxious to show his expertise, the scribe replied with a quotation taken from Deuteronomy 6:4 and Leviti cus 19:18: “You shall love the Lord your God... and your neigh bor as yourself.” In response, Jesus says: “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.” KNOWING & DOING But the scribe once more seeks to embroil Jesus in a theological controversy: “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus could very well have answered him.with a one liner: your neighbor is anyone needing your help whom you can help. Instead, however, he tells a parable that says that and more. Remember, the scribes prided meeting, oED / FI.O w - e=> fbU*!p p If J TTI - To Be The Best S3® THE LIMITS OF LOVE Whether you are a grain, dairy, pork, or poultry farmer inde pendent or contract producer you must be looking for ways to become better. This means spending more time with your animals and crops. Mak ing sure the little things are getting done on time and correctly will improve performance and income. Such items as having cows bred on time, poultry house wanned up before chicks or poults are placed, frequent gathering of eggs, venti lation system properly adjusted, and the equipment and buildings cleaned and properly maintained all help in staying competitive. Look for and demand better ways to do things. Set higher stan dards for yourself and work to achieve them. By following the 4-H motto of 'To make the best better,” you will be insuring your place in farming. Feather Prof s Footnote: “Take time to be friendly—it is the road to happiness." themselves on knowing the law. But in the parable the “hero” is a Samaritan. As a lay person he would “know” far less than a scribe, and as a Samaritan even what little he “knew” would be wrong! By the careful way in which Jesus crafted his story, he discreet ly showed that it is more a mailer of doing than knowing. The priest who “passed by on the other side” certainly knew what to do, but didn’t. The Lcvile also knew the right answers, but he too refrained from doing what he could. All Jews knew that Samaritan' were all wrong in their religious views. For one thing, they believed the right place to worship God was on Mt. Gerizim, not Mt. Zion in Jeru salem. Yet, although the Samari tan was guilty of “wrong beliefs,” he did exactly the right thing: he helped the robbery victim, despite' the fact that the \ iciim was a Jew, a sworn enemy of any Samaritan. LET’S BE REASONABLE In a sense, the scribe had asked, Jesus to say something about the limits of loving one’s neighbor. We can understand that because we too often wonder if love doesn’thave some reasonable lim its. Obviously, we must help someone in our own family who is in need. We all “know” that, although we may not alt act upon it The same is true of our friends. But what about the family next door whom we hardly know and actually don’t much like - they, with their loud stereos and dog who seems to like our yard a lot more than theirs? And whai about the people on the south end of town who live in perpetual squalor and unemploy ment? What about those Hare Krishnas who always accost us when we go to the airport? And even if all the others arc my “neighbors,” surely that doesn’t include Saddam Hussein! The answer is no less hard for us than it was for the scribe: in Christ there are no limits to love. (Based on copynghted outlines produced by the Committee on the Uniform Senes and used by permission Released by Community and Sub urban Press.)