Good to be back in the saddle, unfortunately I was in the wrong town.

I've spent a lot, some say too much, time in Schuylkill County. So, I've been working in Hamburg for about the last two weeks now and I can tell it's going to take some time to adjust. Take, for instance, my geographic blunder of Wednesday night.

For this week's paper, I'll be featuring the struggle some Upper Bern Township residents are facing from a local chicken farmer and a catastrophic fly problem. The regularly scheduled meeting was sure to be a barn-burner and was excited into get back onto the saddle of covering some hard news for the Item. I never met a tense municipal meeting I didn't enjoy covering -- I just really feel the need to tell people's stories, and this is some story.

How appropriate, I thought, "Back onto the saddle. Shartlesville. Sheepskin Shop. What a coincidence!

I was sure the easiest way to get to Shartlesville was down Route 183. My brothers were playing a Little League game in Orwigsburg at 5:30 p.m. and I was due at what I thought was the home of Pat Garrett's Sheepskin Shop at 7 p.m. There was no way I would make the game (or the beginning of it, at least) and to the meeting early enough to make myself known among this group of strangers.

Just to be sure, before hitting the road, I ran a Google Maps search to see if getting to the game was going to be a reality. Sixteen minutes? Apparently I confused Shartlesville with Strausstown, or Strausstown with Shartlesville.

So I saw the first three innings of the game, made it to the proper destination - Shartlesville, for sure, and there is no Sheepskin, just a gigantic miniature village - and got a front page story for the next Item.

Without providing too many spoilers, the residents of Upper Bern Twp. face an uphill battle against regulations, hearsay and a lot of flies. And by a lot of flies, take the worst you could imagine and double it.