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Have you ever noticed that almost anything is easier to get into than out of. Things like trouble and creative writing come to my mind immediately. Oh well, since talk is cheap except when Congress is in session, let's move right on to Summer Scene 2005 at Riverview. With Cader IV running the day to day operations, I have more free time to observe and report our spring and summer activities to you. Our hunting season ended on March 22 with five inches of rain and two feet of lightning. This storm was the precursor to about three weeks of heavy storms which woke up the old Flint River and sent it climbing towards us. I tried to get flood crest predictions from government officials, but had to remind myself not to argue with idiots because folks listening might not be able to tell the difference. Some of these officials definitely suffer from delusions of adequacy. Fortunately, the Flint crested with about four feet of rise to spare for us at our lowest point. As soon as the flood waters began receding, our woods dried out enough to begin our spring burning program. An abnormally cool and wet spring provided the environment for an almost perfect burning program. We suffered practically no needle scorch on our trees and got a clean, cool burn in our woods on the parcels identified by Jerry to burn. Once we finished burning, Jerry and Jimmy began our mammalian trapping program on the unburned tracts of land. If I had known we had that many critters in the woods, I might have changed my jogging routine. I did remind these guys not to corner something meaner than them. We caught one of the biggest coyotes that I've ever seen and thought about having it mounted. Since we were working on our income taxes at about the same time as our trapping program, I was reminded that Mark Twain once said, "The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin." I do know that there will be a lot less four footed predators in the woods this fall thanks to our extended trapping program. While Jerry and Jimmy were trapping, Greg turned his conservation crew loose in the woods to begin our feed patch plantings. With R.J. leading the way and Ronnie, Spencer, and Andy following , another summer's smorgasbord of quail food is going in the ground. Due to last year's hurricanes, some of our normal seeds such as Egyptian wheat will not be available. Greg says that we will be planting a hybrid grain millet which gets about three and a half to four feet tall along with a new variety of grain sorghum which produces a larger seed head. We have considerable experience down here with "big heads"; so this milo should do well. We are also planting our normal mixtures of other small grains and should have a bountiful supply of food for our quail population. While Greg's crew is laying in food plots, Jerry and Jimmy have continued with our very successful grass reseeding program. This year we are concentrating on switchgrass and lovegrass (no, not that kind of grass) since we have had so much success with these two. Also, Jerry's use of the chemical application of Garlon to control briars and undesirable hardwoods is continuing at an even more rapid pace. This program is one of our most exciting breakthrough discoveries in recent years. We are just stunned with the results of this program. On our hunting courses, many of our native grasses have re-emerged after years of dormancy due to undesirable competition. While Jerry and Greg's crews are working in the woods, Moss and Dave have been occupied in that same arena on the dozers. They have cleaned up some more hunting areas to expand both the Lakeside and The Hollow hunting courses and have also finished piling and burning the last of our past hurricane debris. The heavy equipment work is their afternoon jobs. Moss and Dave spend most of their mornings at the kennel polishing up our fall dog rosters along with their vocabularies. As I write this report, they are off on a dog buying expedition with my credit card. Since I'm a little worried about my credit card, I reminded them of what my mother always told me before I went out bar hopping in my younger years, "Don't pick that up, you don't know where it's been." But, I'm certain they will find 20 or so outstanding dogs to add to the ones they are training here. Once again Jimmy is custom designing two Riverview stretch hunting jeeps for this fall. Kevin and Blake will be his new interns on this project. One new thing we are trying this summer in the shop is an idea of Cader IV' s. We are going to build a third Riverview stretch jeep complete with bumpers, steps, dog boxes, gunboxes, dog water tanks, etc. and auction it on E-bay. If you are interested, we should have it on the auction site by late July or August. Even though we are trying new ideas in the woods, kennels, and shop, we are fairly reluctant to change much down here at the lodge. However, we are implementing another of Cader IV's ideas at the lodge. We are constructing a small, free standing business office and plan to install a satellite internet connection in it. We will probably have one fixed computer and a plug in for a couple of lap tops for those of you who just can't make it without borrowing my computer while you are here. We had hoped to get fast internet connections for all of our cottages, but have about decided that we may not live long enough to see high speed internet come to the real sho' nuff country. This proposal seems to be our best solution for you, and we do understand that this is an amenity that many of you need. Have no fear, Retha is busy putting up fig preserves, jellies, and green tomato pickles even while other activities are going on at the lodge. Of course, no Summer Scene edition would be complete without mentioning Greg's farming operation. Cader IV has decided that farmers are the only folks in the world who buy retail and sell wholesale, but we have a great quality of life as we go broke. Bo, Marvin, Clyde and J.D. have grown some beautiful sweet corn this spring. We have used sweet corn as a tax shelter for the past four years, but are cautiously optimistic that we may actually get paid for it this summer. Now that's a novel idea! Once we have harvested our sweet corn, we plan to double crop behind it with milo. We will sell some milo and store the balance in grain bins to feed the quail during the winter months. As has been the custom with the newsletter for the past 25 years or so, please allow me to close with just some random thoughts and observations. We will continue our very popular holiday promotion rate dates. For the 2005 - 2006 season, those dates are:
Again, as I write this newsletter Martha and I are still prayerful that we will be grandparents of triplets later this summer. Our daughter, Holly is holding on, but we know there is a long way to go. We would appreciate your prayers. I have told Holly that if raising children was going to be easy, it would never start with something called "Labor." I also expect to lose my assistant and bride of 35 years to her new calling of grandmothering. Our middle daughter, Cadie, continues to enjoy her banking career in Atlanta. O.K., now for just a few really random thoughts: I don't know why anyone would want to do drugs. I can get the same effect by standing up real fast. I read this advice recently in an article titled, Farmer's rules to live by: "Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Leave the rest to God." I don't know who wrote this, but it sounds like a pretty good philosophy. In closing, we want you to know how much we appreciate your friendship and loyalty to our program at Riverview. We are preparing for another great hunting season. We hope you have a wonderful summer and look forward to visiting with you again during the 2005-2006 hunting season. Sincerely,
Cader B. Cox. III |
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