84-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 22, 1996 On Being a Farm Wife (and other hazards) j Joyce Bupp Our visitors begin arriving even before the sun is up. The first glides in as dawn is nudging away the lingering shad ows of night He takes up his usual position, gathers a deep breath and with unbridled enthusiasm sings praises to the coming day. Not a rooster. A mockingbird. This bird takes very seriously his responsibility to jumpstart the morning with his raucaus wake-up calls. Or maybe he’s the alarm for the roosters who do get in on the action soon afterward. Early mornings and late eve nings find the mockingbird dom inating the chorus of birdsongs that belies that familiar phrase “quiet countryside.” Fact is, our feathered friends are noisy neigh bors. Make the Dairylea advantage work for you. Unmatched markets for your milk. Through a senes of investments in dairy facilities and our strong, long-term milk marketing agreements, Dairylea has created the most diverse and flexible milk marketing network in the Northeast. Unmatched services for your profitability. More than just a market for your milk, Dairylea provides a wide range of programs and services that can have real economic value for your operation. The average farmer can save 15 to 40 cents per hundredweight with the Dairylea advantage of services, such as: • Farm Management Resource Program • Member Loan Program • Fixed Price Forward Contracts • Member Bulk Buying Program • Workers’ Compensation Insurance For membership information, call 1-800-654-8838 today. But it’s an enjoyable racket. This mockingbird is a virtual one-man-show by himself (her self?). His repertoire spans the ga mut of the songs of assorted other species, plus his own original ver sion of rap music. And he’s an un abashed entertainer who demands your attention. He’ll practically land on your head to make sure you’re paying him proper attention. His wake-up calls seem to ori ginate high in the trees of the backyard just beyond the win dow screens. Or so it sounds. If 1 go to the garden, he’ll chatter from the overhead electric wires probably commenting on the weeds that are growing this year like ... weeds. When we sit at the fishpond, he Da" • Top-rated Health Insurance Coverages • Flexible Benefit Programs • Member Pension Plan • Milk Check Direct Deposit • State-of-the-art Milk Testing and Reporting lea parks in the brushpile of limbs brought down by the spring ice storm. We planned to get rid of that brushpile, but another bird in terfered. A Northern (Baltimore) Oriole finds the top of the pile to be a handy spot to pause on ingo ing and outgoing flights from a nest somewhere in the maples. At least that’s what The Farmer keeps telling me. I’ve yet to see the elusive black and orange fel low. And further holding up the brushpile cleanup is the family of baby bunnies that streak in and out from the bottom of the pile of limbs. They claimed the pile as home after outgrowing their birth place a fur-lined hole located smack in the middle of the straw berry patch. Recently I had to res cue one of the bunnies when it sneaked back into the patch to snack on berries and became en tangled in the bird-deterrent net ting. Another of the mockingbird’s favorite haunts is also shared with a fellow backyard resident. The li farm’s electric service pole sits just outside the front entrance to the dairy bam. From the very tip top of that tall pole, just above the transformer, he sits to belt out sol os while I feed calves. A squirrel sprawled over the top of the pole one recent morning appeared to have died there. Perfectly still, the squirrel’s bushy tail hung limply down to one side; but with the binoculars I could see its eyes were open. I’ve never seen a squirrel so still. Maybe it was just playing possum, because later, it vanished. Or some hawk had breakfast. But the mockingbird’s most in spiring hangout appears to be what we call the “osprey nest.” Some years ago, our son devised this tall pole with a flat nest site on top and erected it on the lower | r , ■ ?; i ■ '• '"tA\ : ; f SfjCrf.s y , i •-•• ••••• GOOD FOOD INC. L&S SWEETENERS W. Main St. Box 160 ft - 388 E. Main St. Honey Brook, PA 19344 Leola Pa 17540 610-273-3776 717-656-3486 1-800-327-4406 1-800-633-2676 ffiSTI Accepted • We Ship UPS Daily edge of the big pond. On a rare oc casion or two, we have had an os prey visit; more normally, the perch hosts hawks, herons, and kingfishers. One recent evening, that bois terous mockingbird followed us to the pond, landed on the platform uid began to belt out his medley af songs. About every 30 seconds, lie’d stop singing, do several acro batic flips around in the air, then resume singing. This bazarre be haviour went on for several min utes. There's no way to know for sure. But I suspect he found some way to sneak under the bird net ting and was suffering the effects of one too many overripe straw berries. voußseL f
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