Herd

koelble@herald-mail.com CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - With two winning streaks on the line and vaunted rival Carlisle in the house, Chambersburg certainly did not cherish the thought of being the team forced to start from scratch again. So, the No. 3-ranked Trojans went out and laid down some solid defense, got some key points to maintain momentum and left the court with a 53-41 win over Carlisle to extend their winning streak to eight games while stopping the Thundering Herd's five-game streak on Tuesday in Mid-Penn Commonwealth action.

"Kids love goat milk. " Those words are painted on the back of Caprikorn Farms' stainless steel goat milk transportation truck and stamped on the Gapland farm's goat cheese wrappers. The statement also seems to be true for the young Saanen kids on Alice Orzechowski and Scott Hoyman's farm. The kids, which are bottle fed pasteurized milk from the herd's females, probably don't realize they have a celebrity in their mother herd: Stargate, a 3-year-old doe, is not just the top milk producer on the farm, she's the top milk producing doe in the United States.

The West Virginia Department of Natural Resources has released the preliminary numbers for the recent two-week firearms season and the number are interesting and very telling. This year's overall buck kill total was 56,347. This is down 12 percent from the 2004, which was not a good year. The numbers for the past five years show a declining trend, which does not bode well for future seasons. The DNR has its own spin on the preceding numbers, but any knowledgeable person can see that the number of bucks available to hunters in West Virginia is down significantly.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has released the preliminary harvest total for the recent two-week firearms season. That total is preliminary because deer hunters sometimes check deer in counties other than the ones where they were taken, so the data has be reviewed and corrected by the DNR prior to the release of the official numbers. The totals were surprisingly good in most counties. The 2003 total is 42,166 deer, compared with 41,469 last season. This small increase is particularly impressive when you factor in things such as poor weather conditions during part of the season and poor mast production in many areas.

julieg@herald-mail.com Five deer were shot on Antietam National Battlefield land Monday night as the National Park Service prepares a white-tailed deer management study, the park's superintendent said Tuesday. Park Service officials haven't decided whether to kill deer to thin the population, Superintendent John Howard said. National Environmental Policy Act requirements, including autopsies of the five deer, must be completed before officials can decide if the park has too many deer and if so, how to address that, Howard said.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - The drought of 1999 began in earnest in May, but this year, it's a different story. Rainfall in the last two weeks has boosted the total for May above the average of 3.7 inches, according to local weather observer Jerry Ashway. Ashway said Tuesday the first half of the month was dry, but recent rains have raised the total for the month to 3.95 inches. Last May, just 1.76 inches of rain fell in the Chambersburg area, he said. During the prime growing months of May, June and July last year, total rainfall was about five inches, less than half the 11.6 inch average for those months.

The West Virginia DNR reported that a total of 11 deer taken during the spring collection period have tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease, a number which seems high in comparison to the number of prior reported cases. All of the positive deer came from the Slanesville/Augusta area of Hampshire County. There were no positive tests from the Yellow Springs area, which had a positive CWD deer during the 2007 firearms season. This was the first case outside of the CWD containment area, the portion of Hampshire County located north of U.S. 50. Prior to this spring, CWD had been confirmed in a total of 19 deer in Hampshire County in three years.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. ? They were on a high with three minutes left to play, having rallied to tie Carlisle, 14-14. Just 47 seconds later, Chambersburg's momentum was blown out to I-81 when Khalil Bunce rumbled 66 yards for a touchdown and the Thundering Herd held on for a 21-14 Mid-Penn Commonwealth victory. "We don't need any moral victories, we just need a victory, period," said Chambersburg coach Dave Carruthers. Down 14-7 with 6:46 remaining, Darren Engel blocked a Carlisle punt and the Trojans (0-7, 0-7)

The 20 or so horses that roam Carousel Farm off Darke Lane are huge, gentle beasts that come in colors from black to gray to white. One of those horses, Excalibur, a big, black 7-year-old Percheron stallion, is a prime example of the draft horse breed that farm owner Jim McGowen has been raising since 1984. A big stallion can stretch 18.2 hands high and weigh up to 2,500 pounds, he said. Many Percherons weigh more than a ton. McGowen began breeding Percherons in Calhoun County, W.Va.

Jackie O'Boyle, covered with goose bumps, mud from head to toe, arms held tight to her body against the cold and shivering uncontrollably, was happy. O'Boyle, 25, and 30 of her New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine classmates had just finished Tough Mudder, a grueling, slimy, hilly, nearly 12-mile obstacle course near Glengary. “I've run a lot of races, but nothing compares to this,” O'Boyle said. “The water was over my head at times.” She was among an estimated 10,000 people who ran the course Saturday and a projected 3,000 more who will come on the field Sunday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., organizers said.