EM-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 1, 2000 On Being q Farm Wife (and other hazards) Joyce Bupp “Mooooooo!bawled Elvira. “Mooooooo?,” queried Pixie, raising her long black eyelashes. “Mooooooo@#*&,” grumbled Exxon, who was trying to grab a nap before The Farmer showed up to start that noisy milking equipment and radio. “Would you girls knock off the chatter and go chew your cuds?” “What are you all mooooosing about, anyway?” she demanded, shaking her horns (which The Farmer’s wife had botched removing when Exxon was just a baby calf). “Awww, they’re still going on about that big, bright moooooooon,” chimed in Argon, who had been moooonitoring this exchange from the other end of barn. “They’re still miffed because they thought it was day light and The Farmer should have mooooooved them out of the barn and into the pasture. They they realized it was real ly nighttime but the light was so bright it seemed like feeding time.” “Pipe down you moo juicers over their!,” bossed Lucy. “That special mooooon was last week. So a couple of you were tricked by Mother Nature. Moooove on and get over it'” “She’s such a smart aleck; and usually in a bad mooooooo,” sighed patient old Patty Cow to Pretzel, recuperating side-by side in the box stalls. Patty’s foot still hurt from the stone she had picked up in her hoof and Pretzel’s new bull calf had been a big one. After several years of listening to human chatter every day, Patty Cow was wiser than most of her younger herdmates to the ways of her two-legged servants. And besides, with the news blaring from that noisy barn radio, Patty knew something special was moooovin’ into the world out there. Something bigger than the bright moooooon of last week. “It’s something called a mooooolenni um,” Patty Cow confided to her pen pal. “I don’t quite get it, but they seem to be all worried about stuff called hard drives and chips. “Yeah, I’ve heard all about those hard drives,” butted in busybody Pooky, eaves dropping on their “cowversation” from her spot across the barn alley. “In fact, my dam told me how my great, great, great, grand sire was send off on a hard drive. And how those cowboys tried to drive his herd with a bunch of others to the railroad when a blizzard came through. It was a really hard drive and a bunch of em’ stampeded before they g0t...” “Uh. I don’t think that’s the kind of hard drive she means,” Pretzel interrupted, with a look of udder disdain at the know-it-all heifer. “It’s something with those computer things, like that milk tester uses when she comes to take those little bits of milk from each of us.” “And they find out that some of us do a better job than some of the others in this barn,” she added with a bit of knowing pride at being of the more experienced in the barn figuring out these contraptions the humans came up with. “But I’m not sure about the chips.” “My aunt Oona was in a cow chip con test once,” remembered Olga. “Her owners hauled her to this big green lawn with great fresh grass. She told us it had little white lines making squares, sort of like lit tle pastures marked off, but the grass tast ed awful at those lines. After while Aunt Oona had to, well, you know, lift her tail and... well, some of the people around cheered.” “Gee, they don’t cheer around here when I do that when they put the milkers on me,” grum bled Ginger. “They just complain and get the shovel.” “Anyway, about this moolen nium,” announced Patty Cow, herding the cowversation back her way. “They seem to be wor ried that a bunch of this com puter stuff might shut down, and not work, and cause all sorts of problems.” “Just so they don’t forget that it won’t change us. We’ll still be here making milk, just like we do every other day of the year. We don’t need drives and chips UNIVERSITY PARK (Centre Co.) - There aren’t many fields where hard work also is enjoy able fun. But, for a select few, that’s just what happens every year at the Penn State Ice Cream Short Course. Now entering its 108th year, the course continues as the nation’s oldest, best-known and largest educational program dedicated to the science and technology of ice cream. This year’s seminar, directed by and all those gizmos to do our job. Just so they don’t forget to show up to serve us, like they’re supposed to. I like breakfast on time.” “I heard them talking about one of those moooooolenium things that is good for us, though,” added Patty Cow thoughtfully. “And what’s that?” asked Pretzel. “They’re going to start it off by eating pork.” Here’s wishing all you cow lovers (and everyone else, t 00)... a blessed and bountiful mooooolennium! The M Series Navigator Trailer Sprayer Hard! Quality - Economically priced for any size farming operation Features: . 550, 800 and 950 gallon tank sizes . HARDI Flush and Rinse™ System (optional) - flushes control unit, pump, filters, boom lines and main tank * - 90 gallon flush tank designed to provide maximum turning clearance . HARDI self-priming diaphragm pump or centrifugal pump . HARDI Color-coded Manifold System leads the industry - designed to control all sprayer functions quickly and easily . Boom widths from 35’ to 90’ <HARDI> - 45’ and wider offered with Eagle hydraulic fold . Eagle Boom with patented Self-stabilizing Suspension - provides smooth ride and level boom in rough fields at high st SERVICE RD #1 Box 46, Off Rt. 125 570-648-2088 «smmm»hbwi mimflf wmaf JMifeY SERVICE EQUIPMENT ,q IMPLEMENT 975 S. Main St. Salem Church Road Off Rt. 45 110 S. Railroad Ave. 700 East Linden St 717-264-3533 570-524-2408 717-354-4191 717-866-7518 dWS&SMUnt Route 64 1-800-356-3397 N^«mi. A SHILOH, nj EQUIPMENT Route 11l FARM EQUIPMENT FARM RITE, INC. PA Route 516, RD 3 JJ y Rt . 443 & 89 5 122 Old Cohansey Rd 1-800-839-1992 570-943-2131 856-451-1368 SERVICE 260 York Road 717-243-4419 «ama» SON, INC. 1521 Van Buren Rd, 610-258-7146 Ice Cream Short Course Robert Roberts, associate profes sor of food science in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, will run Jan. 4-13 at the Nittany Lion Inn on Penn State’s University Park campus. The program instructs pro fessionals in all aspects of com mercial ice cream manufacture, including ingredients and fla vors, freezing/hardening and storage/distribution. This year’s course also features lessons on common defects in ice cream, evaluation of market samples and a tour of the University Creamery operations. The course will look at sys tems that aid in the manufac Where's your mustache? “ SUPPLY RD #3 814-275-3507 30 Aucker Rd. 717-567-3562 ture of better quality frozen desserts, including microbiology and quality testing, nutrition and additives, and hazard analy sis at critical control points (HACCP) techniques. “Mom-and-pop” operators and would-be entrepreneurs also will enjoy the “Successful Ice Cream Retailing” seminar being offered Jan. 14-17 at the Nittany Lion Inn. Conducted by Ed Marks, a consultant with more than 50 years of experi ence in the ice cream industry, the seminar is intended for those who want to own an ice cream parlor, rather than an ice cream factory. =4mjwi>= HARDI Manifold System ieeds ECKROTH EQUIPMENT 4910 Kernsville Road 610-366-2095 L*MIW&WN EQUIP. 1241 Old Country Road 516-727-8700
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers