Aio-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 21, 1992 OPINION Autumn Finishes Year The Autumn season finishes the year. Hangs harvest moon in color atmosphere Grain ripens, wheat and oats leap into shocks, We hasten toward the last year’s equinox... For Winter hides behind a northern sky. Floats in each wavering wind that flurries by. Thanksgiving time, com hurries toward the bam, As ice forms isles on meadow-brook and tarn. At borderland of evexy fertile field. Marauding crows peck at remaining yield Of grain dropped by machine or man, unseen... They chatter as they sweep the furrows clean Apples, like small, red worlds, plunge down the night On orchards, in mounds, beautiful and bright. Fall changes little as the years go by, The prairie folk are glad... and so am I, For every single blessing gives a reason That we rejoice at this Thanksgiving season! Farm Calendar Mercer County annual meeting, Extension Office, Mercer. Farm City Fest, Mountain View High School, 7:30 p.m. Lancaster County Farm Open House, thru November 22. Mercer County Holstein Club annual meeting. Extension Chester County Estate Planning Workshop, West Chester Bor ough Hall, 7 p.m.-lO p.m. Forage School, Days Inn, Meadville. Penn State Income Tax Institute, Embers Convention Center, Carlisle. Annual Forage Conference, sha dowbrook Inn and Resort, Tunkhannock, 9 a.m.-3:30p.m. S.W. Pa. Hay Auction, Westmore land Fairgrounds, 11 a.m. Dairy Nutrition Seminar, York Co. 4-H Center, Thomasville, 10 a.m.-2;30 p.m. PFGC Annual Forage Conference, Shadowbrook, Tunkhannock. X, Y, Z’s of Dairy Nutrition and Feeding, York County 4-H Center, 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Franklin Farm-City Banquet, Clarks Recreation Center, Irid.n, Nou'liilht 27 National Milk Producers Federa tion Annual Meeting and Dairy Summit, Las Vegas, thru Dec. Chester County Estatev Planning Workshop. West Chester Bor ough Hall, 7 p‘.m.-10 p.m. Goat Meeting, Lancaster Farm and -Stella Tremble, Lycoming Co. Extension Home Center, basement, 7:30 Dairy Housing Ideas, Lancater Farm and Home Center, base- Lancaster County On-Farm Com posting Field Days, Bob Keller man’s Farm near Lititz, 10 National 4-H Congress, thru Dec 11. Annual Victorian Christmas at The Station, Manheim. Crawford County annual meeting, St. Hippolyte Church, Fren- McKean County DHIA Meeting, Robbin’s Nest Restaurant, 7:30 p.m. Western Pa. Commercial Veget able Growers’ Seminar, Days Inn, Butler, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. N.Y.-Pa. Seed Potato Meeting, First Citizens National Bank, 7th Regional meeting on Practical Biosecurity for Popularity, Clayton Hall, University of Delaware, Newark, 8 a.m. ADA/DC District 21, Bryncliff Motel Conference Center, Var ysburg, N.Y., noon. Ag Service School, Bradford County Extension, Towanda, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. North Carolina Dairy Manage ment Tour, leaves 6 a.m. Edin boro Inn, Edinboro, returns Dec. 10. Agronomy Dealers In-service, ISxtensiOT^fficcJOajn^^ Northeast Lamb Pool, Wyalusing Sale Bam. Ag-Service School, The Country Cupboard, Lcwisburg, 9 a.m.-3 Meeting for Veterinarians, Leola Family Restaurant. 7 p.m. To Take A $25,000 Management Tip Luther Smith, West Virginia farm management specialist, wrote about this $25,000 manage ment tip. An efficiency expert named Ivy Lee was discussing ways to improve the management of a steel company. The president told him he knew he was not running an efficient company. What he needed was not more “knowing what to do” but “how to get it done.” The president said he would pay him anything within reason if he could help him get more things done. Lee outlined the following steps: 1. Take out a piece of paper and pencil. 2. Write down the six most important things you need to do tomorrow. 3. Number those things from one to six in the order they need to be done and keep the list in your pocket 4. Tomorrow, when you start your day, look at the list and start on number one. If you can, stick with it until it is fin ished. S. Then move to number two and so on. 6. When all six are com pleted, make another list and keep repeating the process. After Lee told the president this plan, he directed him to send a check for what he thought the idea was worth. Several months later, Lee received a $25,000 check with a note saying his idea was the most profitable the company had ever adopted. Yes, it is a simple idea you prob ably have heard before. How many of us are really doing it? To Tell The Agricultural Story Thanksgiving marks the time this country gives thanks for its many blessings. American agriculture remains strong through its many dedicated farm families, and agribusiness employees. Today, United States consumers spend around 10 percent of their disposal income on food. This compares to 18 percent for Japan, 32 percent for Mexico, 48 percent for China, and S 3 percent for India. In addition, we have one of the safest food supply in the country. I hurstlii\, I K'l'i'inlht 10 Ag Issues Forum, Kreider’s Restaurant, Manheim, 7:30 a.m.-9 a.m. Dairy Production Diseases and Economics Seminar, Farm ■ Show Complex, Harrisburg, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Ag-Service School, Embers (Quality Inn), Carlisle, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Grounds Managers’ Winter Semi nar, Warrington Motor Lodge, Warrington. Recent media reports have ques tioned our food supply. We need to point out many of these abuses are the exception rather than the rule. I find it interesting that it was not very long ago people were cri ticizing the United States Depart ment of Agriculture for having too many employees while the number of farmers were declining. We .now have an opportunity to explain the Department of Agri culture has a very important func tion of insuring food standards and safety. Also, the department serves all people, not just farmers. At this holiday season, let us give thanks for our favorable climate and pro ductive soils and for the men and women who have combined the resources made available to them into a very efficient food produc tion, processing, and distribution system the envy of the world. To Deal With Wet Corn The cool weather this summer and fall have resulted in more GETTING IT “RIGHT” November 22,1992 Background Scripture: Micah 6. Devotional Reading: Micah 6:9-16. One of those stories that my father and mother used to love to tell us was about one of the fust Christmases of their marriage. My mother’s present to my father was a beautiful bridge lamp. Now, my father didn’t want or need a bridge lamp, beautiful or not But my mother liked the lamp so much so taht is what she gave him. The reason we all liked that story so much was thatit is'so rep resentative of human nature: often what we give someone is not what they want or need, but what we like. No one knows that more cer tainly than God, for throughout human history we have given him, not what he wants and asks for, but something else. In Micah, the prophet asks rhe torically: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first bom for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”(6:6). HE HAS SHOWN YOU Whenever human beings have felt a need to respond to God or seek his help, they have come up with somtf rather elaborate sys tems which, although quite human, they have ascribed to the Lord. So, they have made animal sacrifices, burned offerings, parti cipated in elaborate rituals, afflicted their own bodies, deliv ered copious incantations, and so forth-all for the sake of pleasing or pacifying God. The problem, as the prophet makes clear, is not that we don’t know what God really wants from us, but that we prefer to give him something else. It is not because his will is hidden, for “He has showed you, O man, what is good”(6:8). After all these thou sands of years, after all these reve lations God has given us, we still immature and higher moisture levels in com. This is the year to test your com silage and high moisture grains. High moisture and immature com may contain less energy. Also, com silage may test lower in protein and higher in acid deter gent fiber (ADF) and neutral deter gent fiber (NDF). Com grain and com silage ensiled at higher mois ture levels generally is more acid and less palatable. Dry matter intakes may be a problem. Feeding cows more buf fers might help this situation. The higher acidity levels may cause more breakdown of the protein fraction, releasing more ammonia, etc. Soluble or degradable protein levels might be higher and unde gradable or bypass protein might be less. Thus, it is very important to forage test and work very close ly with your nutritionist. Feather Prof s Footnote: "Other things may change us, but we start and end with family."— Anthony Brandt don’t get it right—because we don’t want to. We like it our way. “And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God”? It is amazing how really simple it is to give God what he wants: do jus tice, love kindness, and walk humbly. No secret words, no hid den teachings, no towering moun tains to climb or unending deserts to cross. Nothing but justice, kind ness and humility! WHAT DO YOU MEAN? But it is in the nature of human ity to stall and ask, what does he mean by justice, kindness and mercy? So Micah spells it out in a way that could hardly have pleased his listeners. What it does not mean, said Micah, is cheating, lying and doing violence—the three most popular activities of their society. And what about ours? Isn’t that what our society is all about: cheating and lying, and if that doesn’t work, violence? Isn’t that what television and the movies tell us? Micah’s message is just as relevant for our world as it was his. “You shall eat, but not be satisfied, and there shall be a hun ger in your inward parts”(6:l4). It is interesting to note that in the day when Micah spoke or wrote these words, people worked daily just to eat. Most of their labor was spent on getting enough food, not to satisfy them, but to survive. Today, despite the millions who are starving around the world, ours is a world of relative plenty so far as food is concerned (it just isn’t distributed very well!) yet, despite all of this food, we are no more satisfied than the people of Micah’s time. There is in us that same “hunger in your inward parts” that food never seems to fill. If we gave God what he really wants from us, we would receive what we really need and that hun ger in the “inward parts” would be gone. It is really so simple—isn’t it about time we got it right? Lancaster Farming Established 1955 Published Every Saturday Ephrata Review Building 1 E. Main St. Ephrata, PA 17522 by Lancaster Farming, Inc. A Stmnmtn Entvpri— Robert C. Campbell General Manager Everett R. Newtwanger Managing Editor Copyright IM2 by Lancaster Farming
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