The Riley Factor #80

The Riley Factor Fort Plain, NY
September 6, 2010
(All the Rock Creek Farm news that's fit to print, along with unfit to print rumors, prognostications & bloviations.)

Labor Day Visitors -- Roger, Carol and Cindy Slate spent a couple of days of Labor Day Weekend at the NY Compound.  With great success, the accompanying kids, Sebrina and Brittany, spent two days coaxing the senior chickens to lay more eggs.  Although their specific methods went unobserved, the results could not be ignored with the 17 egg-laying hens producing over three dozen eggs in a 24-hour period.  When not singing to and cuddling the red hens, the girls were swimming in the lower pond and playing with the 23 young turkeys and, of course, the five bovines.
Planting and Plowing -- The second cutting of hay was completed last Wednesday and is in the barn, with 120 bales stacked and salted.  Mowing, some plowing, some disking and the fall farm work begins.  Susan harvested about three-quarters of the tobacco and hung it in the greenhouse for drying.  Still have potatoes, tomatoes and peppers to harvest.  And winter wheat to plant.

Riley -- Riley has become the model citizen in car rides.  Sitting quietly looking out the windows, with his favorite position being riding shotgun next to the driver.  Looks a bit ridiculous as he rides around town sitting patiently and surveying the surroundings.

The Herd of Five -- The Fearsome Fivesome loves the newly cut hay.  After getting a few bales of it, they were returned to reality and eating through the remaining 600 bales of last year's remaining forage.  On Labor Day, when Susan filled the outside feeder with the old stuff, the herd turned the feeder upside-down in protest.  "Free the Fort Plain Five", they mooed in protest as they left the feeder area in ruins.

Fowl Weather -- Adding a formal outside pen for the turkeys and chickens is the first fall project to begin the journey to fruition.  Designed to be about 12' by 36' and six feet high, should be completed in a week or two.

Mowings, Musings and The Woods -- Oops.  While mowing around the upper pond, I wasn't paying enough attention and hit a 25-foot tall white pine tree, about 8 inches in diameter, with the corned of the bucket loader and flattened the tree -- snapped it off right at ground level.  On the bright side -- slightly improved view and firewood anyone?

Quotes of the Week -- "Liberal environmentalists don't care anything about people.  They are all about 'Save the Whales' and 'Abort the Fetuses'." -- Laura Ingraham, Fox News, 9/2/10.

                              

     "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." -- Proverbs 22:6