A2O-Umcasftr Farming, Saturday, May 23, 1992
VERNON ACHENBACH JR.
Lancaster Farming Staff
MERTZTOWN (Berks
Co.) A small mountain of
shelled com was piled high inside a
Hollywood-style storage building
on a farm in Long Swamp town
ship, in Berks County. It repre
sented part of the annual income
for Robert and Melinda Tercha.
Robert “Bobby” Tercha spent a
Friday morning talking with a
broker about timing and price, try
ing to set a deal for selling about
10,000 bushel. No good. The price
wasn’t right
It made Tercha a little nervous,
he said, waiting out the weekend.
Even though he didn’t have to sell
the com immediately, he wanted to
lock in on the best price he could.
Robert and Melinda Tercha raise corn as a cash crop on
more than 500 acres in eastern Berks County and also raise
Angus bulls and some hogs for sale and for their own con
sumption. They store shelled corn and sell it through a
broker, when the market price Is right.
I
This Angus bull Is one of a dozen the Terchas raise for
meat and market. The Terchas said they prefer the texture
and flavor of the young bull meat over steer meat.
Making Ends Meet And
In the detatched reality which is
the Chicago Board of Trade, upon
which local prices are compared,
weekend rumors or new official
predictions could drop com prices
dramatically.
Or they could skyrocket.
Meanwhile, Melinda Tercha,
wife of Robert, was working
around the house. It has taken her
years to forge a grass yard in the
3.5-acre wooded lot in which they
built their home 10 years ago.
Poison ivy, which had choked
the black cherry, oak and maple
trees in the unihabited woodlot.
took years to control. It has finally
subsided in returning, she said,
though it was persistent and
required constant work to remove.
Robert came home for lunch, it
si . , *
'* \
was raining lightly all day, but all
the planting on the 500-acre,
father-son, cash-crop operation
was {Hetty well finished.
What remained, was to feed the
dozen Angus bulls the couple
raises for food and market and
make some phone calls.
In the kitchen, obsolete and anti
que butchering tools hang from a
main beam. The tools are a decora
tive statement The statement is,
“We arc farmers. We know how tc
live off the land. We butcher and
use almost every part of the animal.
We make our own food.”
The farm is more of an agribusi
ness than a typical southeastern
Pennsylvania farm.
Income comes from diversified
endeavors rentals, crop sales,
animal sales, and, until recently,
Melinda’s job.
The arrangement allows the
couple to be able to pay off the
property which they are slowly
buying from Robert’s father, Stan
ley. Over the past 6 years, they
have paid for 115 acres.
The father-son arrangement is
an extension of a working relation
ship the two have held since Robert
was a teenager and started paying
for half of all new equipment
purchases.
The two own a batch drier,
which is efficient and makes it
easier to store the com. And they
have enough room to store almost
everything produced.
They also grow alfalfa which is
baled, then fed to the steers and
extra sold. A few feeder pigs are
finished out for the family’s- use
and market. The feeders are bought
from Daniel Hartman, who rents
one of the bams on the property
and has a small farrowing
operation.
The Tercha’s also grow wheat
and soybeans. About 75 to 80 per
cent of the acreage is put in com,
though they do rotate fields as
much as possible.
The life-style is rural, the loca
tion less and less rural. Commuters
who work in New Jersey have been
buying up residential development
homes to escape New Jersey and its
problems.
And they bring some of their
own.
Allentown is close by. Traffic on
Rt. 222 gets heavier and heavier.
Melinda, who was recently rec
ognized by the Pennsylvania State
Grange for being awarded the
national “Female Agriculturalist of
the Year,” complained about the
increase in garbage thrown into
their road-frontage fields.
She said that the bottles and cans
and garbage bags and tires make
for a lot of woik. Monthly collec
tions result in several bags of trash.
Luckily, the township hauls away
the roadside trash.
Tires have become more of a
problem because most places
won’t take them for free. Rather
than pay the extra money to leave
old tires at the auto shop, more and
more people are keeping them and
ditching them along back roads.
Glass in the fields can slice trac
tor tires, expensive enough, but
also filled with fluid which isn’t
great for the soil if it spills out
The problem lies in educating
the non-agriculturist, Melinda
said.
li
Currently, she doesn’t have a lot
of time to devote to that. Since the
company with whom she worked
for 17 years closed down, she has
gone back to school to get to a
2-year associate degree in elemen
tary education that will enable her
to work in a pre-school nursery.
But that doesn’t mean the mes-
Corn Grow
- at ida Tercha stand In front of one - Jr
tractors, stored In an equipment shed. Bob and his father
Stanley farm In partnership and own their own equipment.
Robert Tercha talks on the kitchen phone to a commodi
ties broker. Decorating the kitchen are old and antique
butchering tools and utensils Melinda has collected. They
are part of the family tradition of butchering, she said.
sage doesn’t get out. Every year at the Kutztown Folk
The Terchas have been butcher- Festival, which is also nearby,
ing for themselves for years. It Robert performs a complete from
started with Robert’s grandfather start to finish butchering. People
and has been kept alive by the from the city come back year after
intern of Stanley, Robert and year to watch.
Melinda and others. (Turn to Pago A 23)