The Riley Factor #52

The Riley Factor April 17, 2010
(All the Rock Creek Farm news that's fit to print, along with unfit to print rumors, prognostications & bloviations.)

Fort Plain, NY, April 17 -- A cold rain and wind blew into Middle-of-Nowhere over night on Friday, but it followed several days of nice weather and requisite early spring farming.  Riley spent Friday out in the orchard with Chris, who was re-staking, tying and fertilizing the 80 apple, peach, cherry and apricot trees, 20 of which had been planted on Thursday by Susan and Chris to replace those that died over the prior two winters.  Riley also contributed to the fertilizing of the 20 blueberry bushes and 12 raspberry bushes in the new berry patch, which has just been outlined in tall posts awaiting application of screening (walls & roof) and a door.  Nancy and Susan had planted a few new blueberry bushes and added the raspberries on Thursday.  Also on Thursday, 12 new grape vines were planted by the Three Stooges in the vineyard (actually a 40-foot square newly tilled (by Susan) patch in the northwest corner of the vineyard (vineyard trellis to be designed and built in the near future).  Susan and Nancy also fertilized the 4+ acres of semolina and hard red winter wheat in field no. 1.  After several fertilization methods were tried, Susan settled on the tried-and-true giant red funnel three-point spreader on the back of the John Deere tractor to get the job done.  Riley appears to be recuperating nicely from his Tuesday date with the veterinarian and her Scalpel of There'll-Be-No-More-Rileys.  Linda Richter arrived last night for a weekend visit, and Pauline, The Donald and Grandma are arriving mid-day today for a couple days of fun-in-the-Middle-of-Nowhere.