The Riley Factor #81

The Riley Factor Fort Plain, NY
September 12, 2010
(All the Rock Creek Farm news that's fit to print, along with unfit to print rumors, prognostications & bloviations.)

A Football Aside (a mere brief diversion) -- Are you ready for some football> -- Hey, the NFL started this week.  Several of the football pundits at FOX, CBS and ESPN picked those Green bay Packers to win this season's Superbowl -- very wise, very wise.  Alphabetical others notably picked to win it all by some of the less perceptive football geniuses were the Colts, Patriots, Ravens and Saints.  And everyone predicted great seasons to be had by quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees.  I guess it's time to play the games.

Planting and Plowing -- Ahhh ... nothing better than the aroma of aged manure spread on the fields before plowing to give one the true sense of farming.  Well, really, I can think of several things better.  We spent Labor Day spreading aged manure over field no. 1, in preparation of planting the winter wheat.  Then we plowed the fields under, to be followed in the next week or so by disking and planting.

Riley -- Craving his runs around the place these days.  Riley gets-in two or three runs daily, a mile-and-a-half each or so.  He is taking the lead more often and rarely wanders off course.

The Herd of Five -- We may decide to butcher one or more of the steer this fall.  No final decision yet.  Leading candidates and weights are Gabe @ 900-1000 lbs., Eli @ 700-800 lbs., and each of the two Dexters at 600-700 lbs. apiece.  Only Zeke the bull has immunity for now, owing to his skinny 300 lb. frame.  This too shall change.

Fowl Weather -- We're building a new outdoor coop for the turkeys, outside of their indoor coop.  It will be 12'x36' in size and six feet high -- we will have to clip the 23 pair of wings to prevent escape by flight.  Construction schedule still up in the air.  Those same 23 turkeys all escaped en masse on Saturday into the workshop over the garage.  After several house in the Tool House, they each waddled to the upstairs doorway and one-by-one jumped like skydivers flying (sort of) to about half way to the road before hard-landing on the side lawn next to the barn.

Mowings, Musings and The Woods -- While moving the second field, which takes about eight hours to complete, large black hawks, smaller red-tailed hawks and some other bird of prey, probably vultures, were constantly overhead, circling for small prey to be scared into the open by the tractor/mower/me.  Very interesting to watch -- several times, they did get to within 10 feet of the tractor seat, but don't appear threatening at all.  Usually, they cruise 20 to 50 feet overhead.

Separately, Susan encountered a buzzing mound of honey bees on one of the main trails Wednesday afternoon -- a pile a foot or foot-and-a-half in diameter and 4-5 inches high -- consisting of nothing but thousands of bees piled on top of one another.  No idea as to the reason or purpose for this.  We do have a large honey bee nest out back, in the edge of the woods. about 200 feet from this bee pile and about 100 feet from the upper pond, which has been there all summer, without any events to report.  We saw the bee-mound again on Saturday -- a bit unsettling to say the least.

Quotes of the Week --

I do not like this Uncle Sam,

I do not like his health care scam.

I do not like these dirty crooks,

or how they lie and cook the books.

I do not like when Congress steals,

I do not like their secret deals.

I do not like this speaker, Nan , 

I do not like this 'YES WE CAN.'

I do not like this spending spree,

I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.

I do not like your smug replies,

when I complain about your lies.

I do not like this kind of hope.

I do not like it, nope, nope, nope!

                              

                                                                                                      Anonymous