A2O-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 27, 1992
(Continued from Pago At)
a.m. and 4:30 p.m. schedule to pay
the bills.
The operation is simple to
handle, yet sophisticated in con
cept It’s old looking, but modem
ly designed.
When he and Carol moved to the
rural farm, it was not set up for
dairying. It had been a steer and
hog farm with a chicken house.
The chicken house has been
renovated into a series of pens with
headlocking gates which can be
cleaned with a small front-end
loader.
After the calves are raised to
size in hutches, they are grouped
together in the pens, which are out
fitted with headlocking gates.
The bank bam, which Trimble
said was probably built about the
time that the 1814 stone house was
built, was changed from three
large pens to a U-shaped freestall
bam. The floor of the bam is
scraped and the manure stored in
one of the first holding facilities
built in the county.
In the mid-19705, Trimble was
one of the first to take advantage of
cost-sharing to build the manure
lagoon and terrace the sloping crop
fields. His interest in environmen
tal responsibility has not waned.
hi fact, Trimble is involved in
efforts to scrap the current prop
osed nutrient management legisla
tion which would focus on all agri
cultural operations and would be
enforced by the county conserva
tion districts.
The group to which he belongs
is the Family Farm Movement, ini
tiated by neighbor Allen Weicksel.
From the Trimble yard. Weick
sel’s farm is near one of the large,
high-voltage electrical transmis
sion line towers that course the
western ridge near the Peach Bot
tom Atomic Power Station.
According to Trimble, the
movement is not to discourage
environmental responsibility, but
to discourage bunieacratic “exper
ts” who have singled out farming
in the Susquehanna River
watershed as the probable cause of
the excessive nitrogen which flows
into the Chesapeake Bay.
*Tt think it’s a real issue for me.
If you mess (the environment) up,
it’s gone forever. We try to go a
good job with the environment and
wildlife,” he said.
Trimble said that farmers should
know about what occurs on their
farm and whether they are contri
buting to major degradation of an
area and its watershed.
“I think fanners are more edu
cated about the environment, than
some of these people. It’s his (the
farmer’s) livelihood. We live with
it,” he said.
He said that what is needed is
education, not regulation.
However, he said he doesn’t
rule out the need for some
regulation as long as it isn’t the
state Department of Environmen
tal Resources doing the enforce
ment, and as long as it is “farmer
friendly.
“I think we are definitely going
to need a (nutrient management)
program somewhere down the
line.”
A quiet champion of taking care
of agricultural land, Trimble
would be difficult to argue with in
light of his recognized stewardship
and past practices. In 1976 he was
the recipient of a conservation
award for his work on the farm.
An avid hunter, he said he has a
strong appreciation for the quality
of life benefits obtained through an
understanding and caring for the
area in which he lives.
Environmental Dairyman, Brown Swiss Fancier
Also, he said he recognizes the
financial benefits of conservation
practices.
Trimble said that, since he watt
to storing the manure and using it
when it was most opportune, he
hasn’t used any commercial fertil
izer, except for lime, on his com
for more’ than a decade, perhaps
longer.
The area is not typical Lancaster
County, however. There is a lot of
woodland which covers the lower
slopes leading to the river. There
are areas which protect waterways,
though some do course short dis
tances unprotected through
pastures.
A quick check of Peters Creek
last week (above the confluence of
Puddle Duck Creek), which
receives water drained from Dons
dell Farm, revealed a wide diversi
ty of aquatic insects which are
associated with trout streams
mayflies, caddis flies, beetle lar
vae, etc.
Some sedimentation was evi
dent in the tails of pools and
sidewaters, but the main flow of
the stream, and its clarity, seemed
above normal for many lower-state
Pennsylvania streams.
Watercress was growing in the
sidewaters and bank conditions
were better than average. There
were numerous small fish dim
pling the slow flowing pools.
However, it was apparent that
some people have been driving
along the unimproved Peters
Creek Road and dumping along
the banks of the stream such things
as cat litter and yard refuse.
Not that it couldn’t be farmers
doing the roadside dumping, but it
is unlikely.
Residential growth in the area
isn’t strongly evident, but it is
growing, he said.
Trimble said he’s been dairying
all his life, having grown up in the
southern Lancaster County region
on his father’s dairy farm with its
Holstein herd.
He said his first association with
Brown Swiss came as a youth,
when he bought a Brown Swiss
calf for a project animal. He does
not own any Swiss related to that
animal, but he said having that ani
mal instilled an admiration for the
breed.
A couple of yean after graduat
ing from school, he worked from
1965 to 1969 for the now-defunct
Lee’s Hill Farm in New Jersey.
It was a well-known farm, one
of the oldest Brown Swiss opera
tions at the time.
He said he picked up a lot of
information there, such as how to
artificially inseminate cows,
which he continues to practice,
instead of using an A.I. technician.
He also met his wife Carol while
working at Lee’s Hill Farm.
Her introduction to the dairy
world was through him. Her agri
cultural backround was her fami
ly’s New Jersey retail flower busi
ness. After several years, she got
used to cows, Donald said.
Trimble is recovering from hip
replacement surgery he had recen
tly at Lancaster General Hospital.
He walks with a limp and some
times a cane.
As an avid hunter, he said he
will be ready for the fall grouse
season when he and some friends
plan to take to mountains in
another part of the state for the
arduous walking that is common
with hunting grouse without a dog.
He also hunts deer and occas
sionally goes for groundhog, he
said.
Currently, while recuperating,
he has full-time help for milking.
Peters Creek drains the sgricultural highlands along the east bank of the lower Sus
quehanna River. This rocky area is located a couple miles below Donsdeli Farm and
seems to show at best minimal ar Iture.
This rsnnovated chicken house now serves as an older calf-raising facility at Dons*
dell Farm.
Nancy Ambler from Kirkwood, a
20- to 30-minute drive away, does
the milking.
In the meantime. Trimble does
what he can on the Harm, taking
care of crops, making repairs, and
feeding.
His herd is not on test with the
Dairy Herd Improvement Associa
tion and he doesn’t try to market
pedigree, though he has four
Excellent Brown Swiss cows in the
bam, all home-bred, and he occas
sionally sells calves.
He markets his milk in Federal
Order 4 through Atlantic Dairy
Cooperative and said his Swiss
herd is averaging about 17,000
pounds of milk. His grade Hols
teins are averaging around 21,500
pounds.
Those numbers are strong, but
Trimble has been feeding a totally
mixed ration for the past 12 years.
Trimble also uses a nutritionist,
raises his own forages and has pro
tein tests done. He purchases some
com and feed supplements from
the local mills and he is on a herd
health program with a local veter
inary outfit, with visits every two
weeks.
He had tried a computer feeder
and had previously split the herd
into a high and low producing
group, but discovered thathelosta
lot of production when making the
switch from high to low. Now all
his milking cows get TMR. Standing In front of a aw. of thraa round hay bales,
The computer feeder system Donald Trimble ahows the size of the easily handled bales,
remains unused in the bam. and Hs said hs wouldn’t switch back to square, now that hs has
(Turn to Pago A2l) thOSO.