Bitler Well-Qualified
(Continued from Page B 2)
ag board member for First Union
Wachovia Bank, and teaches a
Sunday school class.
Of her spokesperson’s respon
sibilities, Phoebe said that her ex
perience in 1986 as the National
Ag Spokesperson of the Year
provided experience in learning
to think before talking, and to al
ways speak truth.
Media crisis communications
training and in-depth informa
tion are provided to help spokes
persons respond positively in re
inforcing ag facts.
According to Laura England,
Mid-Atlantic’s director of com
munications, Mid-Atlantic Dairy
Association appointed 15 dairy
At Vista Grande farm, bull and heifer calves are raised
as breeding stock. - • .
V *
efcfr- COMINfI SOON, m
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i
There will be 2 hay wagons in front of the store
loaded with close-outs and specials from
alt over the store-some as much as 80% OFFf
Hay wagons re-stocked daily.
(9
Monday Through Saturday
July 21 - 26
Special Sale Hours: Mon. - Fri. 8-8, Sat. 8-2
I
Summertime Hours: Mon., Wed. &Thurs. 8-5; lues. & Fri. 8-8; Sat. 8-1:00
• *
LEACOCK SHOE STORE
64 Old Leacock Rd., Between Rt. 340 & Rt. 30
717- 768-7440
t * • * A . k Z, Shipped UPS_3v>
• •
farmers to serves a spokesper
sons in selected areas of Pennsyl
vania and Maryland.
In addition to providing con
tinued training, Mid-Atlantic
staff will work to secure more in
terviews for its spokespersons.
Among the topics pitched to the
media were the new 3-A-Day
program and June Dairy Month.
The idea for appointing ag
spokes people was started by
Dairy Mangement Inc. and sup
ported by state and regional
dairy promotion groups.
For more information about
Mid-Atlantic’s Dairy Farmer
Spokesperson Network, contact
Laura England at (215)
627-8800, ext. 15.
•
Sneakers, Shoes, Hunting Boots, Clothing,
Roller Blades, Ice Skates, Sporting Goods
* Si
- #v
* *■
On Being a
Farm Wife
(and other hazards
Joyce Bupp
Get a game plan.
Want to go into business, take
a trip, remodel your house? Want
to buy a car, plant a garden,
build an investment account?
Better have a game plan.
That’s the first line of advice
we usually get, regardless of our
end goal. For a garden or remod
eling your house, at least if you’re
doing the job yourself, maybe
• your plan is tucked away in your
head. But if you need to borrow
money, work with consultants,
make arrangements for services,
better get the plan on paper.
Corporations have strategic,
long-range plans; so do single
business operators, though the
plans are perhaps less formal.
Sports teams live and die by then
game plans. Parents plan for
their childrens education, health
care, career training.
It only takes one trip to the su
permarket without a specific list
to remind me of the value of a
paper plan. Without that list,
we’ll have plenty of food and
supplies, except for that key item
that was the purpose of the trip
to begin with.
*■
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So, too, farmers, need a game
plan. Livestock breeders better
their odds at the genetics game
with mating plans, aim at calving
times, calculate expansion and
contraction of herd or flock num
bers. Crop plans are initiated
months ahead, as seed is ordered,
lime and fertilizer spread, prices
contracted perhaps. Grains, like
barley, wheat, oats, are mostly al
ready growing by late fall,
planned and planted many
months before their mid-summer
harvest.
Most games for which we plan,
or play, have fairly dependable
rules and procedures.
The first and foremost rule of
the farming game is that any
thing that can throw a monkey
wrench into your plan, will. And,
there’ll be a few gliches deemed
impossible until they happen.
Of course, the biggest wrench
in the gears is Mother Nature
herself, specializing in throwing
down challenges of drought and
deluge, blasting blizzards, wicked
wuu|&, unseasoned cold fronts,
spa-like 'humidity and heat
from the netherworld. So
fat&ers huddle and revisit their
summer planting and harvest
plans, discarding, altering and in
venting tactics to get to game
plan goal.
To at least break even.
Which is why scores of bags of
seed corn are on their way back
to suppliers*, seed, that farmers
were never able to put into the
ground during the prolonged
weeks of swamp season. Which is
why ground planted to barley or
wheat, and origiaally planned to
be double-cropped with soybeans,
may instead be double-cropped to
*
4
i
t •
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• .
: arming, Saturday, July 19, 2003-63
Lancas'terß
weeds, the one thing sure to
thrive and mature at this late
stage of the summer planting
game.
It’s why hay that was to be
baled was instead chopped,
ahead of the rain, and hay that
was to be chopped was blown
back into fields after it rotted. It’s
why rye grass that was supposed
to be a green forage crop instead
matured to a grain crop to be
combined. And, it’s why bags of
Sudan grass seed, a fast-growing
forage crop often used to replace
a forage crop Mother Nature
messed with, are almost as scarce
as $2 bills.
While farmers juggle and fine
tune their crop game plans this
season, trying to keep a step
ahead of the rules changes, most
of us gardeners have battled the
same forces.
After planting hills of canta
loupes for about the third time,
I’ve finally resigned myself to su
permarket melons. After losing
one whole variety of tomato
plants to bunnies and bugs (most
ly bunnies), some side-shoots of
.the best thriving ones have been
rooted as substitutes. We may go
for a late string bean planting,
because the first two attempts
have been disappointing; or, fro
zen ones are reasonably priced
and ready to use.
And after yanking out scores
of self-seeded morning glory
vines from the flower beds, it fi
nally occurred to me that the
sturdy volunteers could fill the
holes poked in my garden game
plan. A few strategically placed
supports will enable them to
climb away, filling the voids left
by annuals either drowned or
eaten alive by slugs during
swamp season.
Mother Nature is a formidable
game plan opponent. To play her
game, one needs to train for mar
athons, fake the pass, run on a
possible pop foul, putt carefully,
spike the ball and sprint for the
goal post with all you’re worth
and hope you can sidestep the
groundhog hole, which she’ll
throw somewhere into the final
lap.