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.