The Riley Factor #74

The Riley Factor July 11, 2010
(All the Rock Creek Farm news that's fit to print, along with unfit to print rumors, prognostications & bloviations.)

FORT PLAIN NY, July 11 --
Planting and Plowing -- The wheat fields are all golden brown -- waiting for the heads to drop and then it will be combining time.  And then time for baling some straw for bedding.  The barley, buckwheat, oats and rye are in mid-season form.

Riley -- Riley's new high-fashion electronic training collar is making a marked improvement in his behavior.

The Herd of Five -- All is well in cattle-land.  Herd is happy now that the heat wave has passed.

Fowl Weather -- Jersey Giants at nearly two months of age are the same size as our mature egg-laying Rhode Island Red/Cornish Rock Hen crossbreeds at a year or two old.  The Keets (French Guinea Hens) are a traveling band of 16, each never more than a foot or two from their nearest brethren.
Mowings, Musings and The Woods -- Mid-summer mowings are all complete.  Trails are dry.  Ongoing project to re-open some of the logging roads in the woods continues when time permits.  On July fourth, Scott, CJ and Chris spent a few hours in the woods, for the first ti\me marking and posting the north property line.  Felt like we were wandering through the jungles of Southeast Asia, without any bullets flying by.  We are seeing deer on most evening trail rides.

And it doesn't seem possible, but 27 years ago, on a cold and sunny January afternoon, little Stevie was born into our lives in St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, and next Saturday, she marries Scott.  Where has all that time gone?

Quote of the Week -- “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free” (Goethe).