The Riley Factor #79

The Riley Factor August 30 , 2010
(All the Rock Creek Farm news that's fit to print, along with unfit to print rumors, prognostications & bloviations.)

FORT PLAIN NY, August 30  --

Goodbye, Farewell, It's time to Say Adieu ... to Pauline and The Donald Michaud.  Thursday night, family members and friends gathered at Pheasant Hill in Agawam to wish success and happiness to Pauline and Don, who have decided to pick-up and move to Tuscon.  Bags are packed, vehicles are loaded, and the train pulls out of the New England station for all points west on Sunday morning, August 29.  All the best go out to the happy couple about to embark on life's next big journey.

Planting and Plowing -- A bit of mowing, some plowing, some disking and the fall farm work has begun.  Not long before it will be over for another year.  Still have potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and tobacco to harvest.  And winter wheat to plant.  And the final hay cutting of the year to make.

Riley -- If you really want a taste of the experience of Life with Riley, see the movie Marley & Me (2008, Twentieth Century Fox, Owen Wilson, Jennifer Anniston, currently running on HBO).  Although Marley is a Yellow Lab and Riley is a Golden, the two breeds are very similar, and Marley and Riley have the same, let's say, zest for life.  This Hollywood blockbuster (well, perhaps straight to video B- flick) film captures the entire essence of Life with Riley.  Chewed stuff not meant to be chewed, diving into pools of water where no one should swim, jumping up on people who don't fully appreciate the excitement of a 90-pound dog meeting a new acquaintance head-on at 20 mph, "I didn't notice that he chewed through the leash" episodes one after another, etc.  A good time is had by all; well, at least is had by Marley and Riley.

The Herd of Five -- Cutest photo op of the week was Zeke, our 300-pound bull calf, napping under the overhang near the barn, with two of the red chickens standing on top of him -- all three at peace.

Fowl Weather -- The French Guinea Fowls declining numbers continue, with nine of the squawking prowlers remaining.  Eventually, one hopes that they get the idea that in the game of Car Versus Bird, car wins.  On the positive front, Queen Susan has trained 23 two-month old turkeys to come when called.  They follow her around like Red Sox fans follow Big Papi.

Mowings, Musings and The Woods -- Ponds are still overfull and streams are still flowing heavily from last Sunday's torrential rains.  But the basement is now empty of its six-inches of water and the town's fire alarm has stopped going-off every hour.

Quote of the Week -- "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." -- Winston Churchill

The Riley Factor #78

The Riley Factor August 25 , 2010
(All the Rock Creek Farm news that's fit to print, along with unfit to print rumors, prognostications & bloviations.)

FORT PLAIN NY, August 25  --

The Rains -- This past Sunday, we got six inches of rain here in beautiful Fort Plain.  And six inches of water in our basement.  Our drainage culvert, which runs parallel to the house and carries the water run-off from the fields down to the street culvert, breached its boundaries, and we had a 15-foot wide stream of sorts running across our front yard and driveway.  All is fine here now, owing to a couple of pumps running all night in the basement and emptying the swimming-pool-to-be.  We saw some wicked flooding in and around town.  One house, its breezeway and garage had a stream turned river flowing right through it, across the front yard and across Route 163 in a 100-foot-wide swath.  When we drove past, the owners were standing in front of the house in six inches of flowing water in the middle of the street on the double yellow line.  Rock Creek, our little creek after which our farm is named, is dry most of the year or at least runs very, very little.  Our pasture fence is built right over the creek, about 20 yards from Route 163, under which the creek flows through a 4-5 foot in diameter pipe.  After a typical torrential rain storm, the creek might widen to 15-20 feet and perhaps a foot deep for a few hours due to storm run-off.  We have experienced this many times.  Last evening, the creek had swelled to 75 feet wide and was so deep it flowed through and right over the top of the pasture fence.

Planting and Plowing -- Harvesting is done for the year, except for the remaining tomatoes, potatoes and tobacco.  Soon fields will again be plowed and disked, and the hard red and soft white winter wheat will be planted.

Riley -- Allegedly a hunting hound of sorts, Riley spends part of each daily run/walk pursuing rabbits and other little furry creatures.  To date, Riley is being shut out.  A good thing.

The Herd of Five -- Grazing in the pasture, mooing, nibbling on hay bales, slurping some water, pooping ... the life of cattle is not a diverse one.

Fowl Weather -- We sold 20 of the black Jersey Giant chickens, which were about three months old, so now the chicken flock is back to a manageable level at 49 ... 31 remaining Jersey Giants and 18 of the Cornish Rock Hen/RI Red crossbreeds.  On the turkey front, for some reason, the 23 young turkeys, which are about two months old and just learning what their wings are for, decided to fly up into the top rafters in the barn one evening last week.  No explanation offered.  They refused Queen Susan's pleas to return to the planet surface, resulting in their spending a night up over the hay in the rafters above the top floor of the barn.  Fortunately, one night was enough for this adventure.
Mowings, Musings and The Woods -- The most civilized of the logging roads has finally been cleared and pruned to allow even the least hardy sole to traverse via ATV or Ute a half mile into and out of the darkest parts of the woods without feeling like their face is being constantly whacked by brush.  Sorry, but your butt will still feel like you've been in the saddle driving cattle for a week, but, hey, you can't have everything.

Quote of the Week -- "The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Riley Factor #77

The Riley Factor August 21, 2010
(All the Rock Creek Farm news that's fit to print, along with unfit to print rumors, prognostications & bloviations.)

FORT PLAIN NY, August  21 --
Planting and Plowing -- An acre each of barley and oats were combined this week and stored in the barn, to be used as cattle feed.  The oldest member of Rock Creek Farm, the huge Oliver grain combine, continues to chug along without too much repair being called for.  And the second oldest member of the farm family, the New Holland baler, put-up more bales of straw into the barn from the remnants of the semolina wheat harvested a couple of weeks ago.

Riley -- Moving up to three runs per day through the trails and fields to have energized the golden one

The Herd of Five -- A round-em-up rodeo has become virtually a nightly feature in the pasture, as the Holsteins and Dexters enjoy being chased by Susan on an ATV round and round before settling in on a track into the barn.  They each take a turn or two first confronting the ATV head on, and then running away before turning around to fight another time.  Thus far, no head-on charges have resulted in collision.  But Gabe at 900 lbs. and Eli at 730 lbs. each outweigh the ATV and rider, so cowgirl beware.

Fowl Weather -- The Keets flock continues its self-appointed route toward the endangered species list.  Two more were lost to traffic this week, leaving their numbers at 10, down from their starting point of 16.  And one of those 10 has a broken leg, presumabnly from surviving a bump with some 55mph vehicle.  They need all to consider some behavior modification.  And fast.
Mowings, Musings and The Woods -- Susan and her Amish sisters harvested a few quarts of blackberries from the berry patches in the woods, and Susan has untertaken to turn them into blackberry wine.  Stay tuned.  And good thing the haqrvesting was done in daylight, as we heard a large pack of coyotes in the trails and we chased them back into the woods early Saturday evening.  No idea what we would have done had we actually caught them, but leave that matter for another day.

Tales from Hank Burton (and of your government at work) -- Hank Burton is a wonderful man, now in his 70s, and has been riding the seat of a bulldozer for over 50 years.  He did all the excavation that we needed for construction of the barns and drainage of the fields.  He stops in every few weeks to talk.  Although he considers himself 'retired', he still owns and operates an excavation company that does work all around the area, including most of the building of Dream Parks, the national baseball camp in Cooperstown.  He stopped-in last Monday for a chat.  Well, the other day, he pulled his pick-up into his driveway, and was followed in by a white pick-up driven by a woman from the IRS, who had followed him from seeing him somewhere out on the roads.  She handed him a copy of an Internal Revenue Code Section that authorized her to check the fuel in any/all of his trucks, cars, equipment, storage tanks, etc.  After selecting two pick-ups to test (not including the one that Hank had been driving), she announced that one of the pick-ups had the wrong fuel in its tank (cheaper farm diesel; as opposed to road diesel that is sold at a price including all the familiar federal and state road taxes).  Hank explained that that truck was an old one used almost exclusively off road, and had just returned from an 8-day project building a 5-acre pond for a client.  Just that morning, they had run the truck's tank down to almost empty and filled it with road diesel at a gas station in Milford.  No matter, it still contained some farm diesel in it, and it did carry NY license plates on it, so that violation would cost Hank a $1,000.00 fine.  So that is your grand federal government at work -- fining/taxing a 70+ year old small business $1,000 under some arcane law that would not allow even a gallon of farm diesel fuel mixed in a 30-gallon tank containing road diesel.  This while Obama wastes millions of tax dollars going on a half dozen vacations around the world each year and while his minions (guys like Timothy Geitner, Charles Grassley, Barney Frank and others) can't seem to pay their taxes and are excused from bothering to obey other federal laws.

Quote of the Week -- To live is Christ, to die is gain. -- the Bible, Book of Corinthians
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Heartfelt condolences to Hank Burton and Family, on the tragic death of their son, Jimmy, who was killed last Tuesday in a logging accident.

The Riley Factor #76

The Riley Factor August 15, 2010
(All the Rock Creek Farm news that's fit to print, along with unfit to print rumors, prognostications & bloviations.)

FORT PLAIN NY, August 15 --

VACATION EXTRA >>>>> Susan just returned from a one week vacation trip to Big Valley, Pennsylvania, with some Amish friends.  She spent the days visiting over two dozen Amish families and was the talk of the barn raisings.  She said the valley is enormous and strikingly beautiful.

Following that up, CJ and Chris just completed a western road trip, covering over 5,200 miles in 12 days.  First stop was a day at the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field in Green Bay (actually 85 degrees and sunny on August 1).  Then on to the Devil's Tower, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, Deadwood, Cody, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Cheyenne, Dodge City, Kansas City and Gettysburg.  Along the route, we passed through Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Sioux Falls, Denver, Columbus, Scranton and what seemed like millions of square miles of endless corn, wheat, soy and sunflower fields.  One lady told us that if we actually drove past Johnston, Wyoming, we would fall off of the edge of earth -- which was believable.  A great time was had, and CJ drove all 5,212 miles in his Jeep Wrangler.
Planting and Plowing -- the 3/4th acre of semolina (soft white pastry wheat) was combined on this past Wednesday.  CJ got his first taste of the farming life, helping Chris and Susan, without significant incident.  About 900 pounds were produced by the combine, bagged and moved into the upper barn for storage.  Next up, combining the wheat, oats and buckwheat (about an acre of each).  And a second cutting of the upper hay field is also in the offing, perhaps along with haying the deerfield.

Riley -- The golden one has finally started to calm down a bit.  He goes for a two mile run with us (in a vehicle of some sort) twice daily, and includes at least one pond swim in the middle of each outing.  He did make an unauthorized visit once, and was retrieved from Lloyd Vanalstine's front steps late Thursday evening.

The Herd of Five -- The steer spent their second unauthorized night outside on Saturday night, refusing to come into the barn for the evening feeding.  No incidents to report.  Just after dawn, they were all found outside under the barn overhang sleeping in the hay.  We weighed the three Holstein's this week -- Gabe was the winner at 900 pounds, with Eli coming in at 730, and Zeke trailing at a frail 300 (although he was only born this past February 13, while the other two were each born last September).  We estimate the Dexters each at about 600-700 pounds.

Fowl Weather -- The Keets are not chickens -- but they should consider some behavior modification.  Apparently, French Guinea Fowl are not as smart or quick as their barnyard fowl friends, the Jersey Giants and Rhode Island Red/Cornish Rock Hen crossbred chickens.  Four of the Keets have been hit by traffic in the past month, reducing the Keet flock to a mere dozen.  None of our chickens have ever been a traffic fatality, and we have had as many as 100 of them on site here at the NY Compound.  In a related story, the young Narragansett turkeys are now allowed outside, free to roam during daylight hours.  The flock of 23 young turkeys stick closely together as a group and venture as far as 100 yards from the barn.  Susan is their Queen, and the turkeys follow her every move, refusing to leave her side until she escapes.
Mowings, Musings and The Woods -- Many deer have been seen recently prowling the fields and trails.  Including a just-born fawn that stood no more than two feet high at the head.  Also, the great blue heron has returned to the lower pond, with occasional trips to the watering hole in the pasture.  Regardless of how long you stare at a heron, it does not appear flight-worthy, despite its five foot wingspan and long stick-like legs.  But somehow, when the urge is there, it manages to take flight after some considerable effort.

Quote of the Week -- "Honesty may not be the best policy, but it is worth trying at least once in a while." -- Richard M. Nixon -- Particularly appropriate and relevant in today's world for all parties currently serving in the U.S. Congress, and especially for President Obama and his band of minions in the Executive Branch.