October 2022 - 19

NOTES FROM THE FARM
Too hot for old men to be working in the grove
JERRY MILLS
Mills Apple Farm
jerry@millsapplefarm.com
Fruit harvests off to a slow start.
Jonathan apples, which are normally
ripe enough to pick by the third
week of August, were not ripe until
the first week of September. By then
I had already given them two stop
drop sprays. They held through two
weekends of pick-your-own marketing
and look to be good enough for another
week as I write this.
The same was true with Gala and
Ginger gold. We do not have many Red
Delicious. Goldens, which often do not
color well, are developing color.
The problem may be varieties, which
normally ripen in an orderly fashion,
may end up jammed together, like
traffic at a stop sign.
Temperatures were high but not
as bad as the humidity which was
excessive. My kids said it was too hot
for old men to be working. I agreed and
went home or found an air-conditioned
tractor to drive.
Rains which are often erratic this
time of year have been coming regularly
enough to keep crops going.
Corn and beans in the area are as
good as I have ever seen them. Our
hearts go out to other parts of the
country where conditions have not been
as favorable.
We just installed a new 30-foot
flagpole. You will be amazed at how
easy the process was.
The aluminum pole came wrapped
with plastic in a carboard tube. A four
foot by eight-inch piece of culvert came
with it. There was a two-foot anchor rod
welded to the base plated on the culvert.
The rod had a six-by-six-inch square of
half-inch steel fastened to it to prevent
it from pulling out from the ground.
I dug a twenty-four-inch hole five
feet deep with my trusty skid-steer
loader auger.
We placed the culvert in the hole
with the anchor rod at the bottom and
packed grade-eight gravel around it. We
then filled the rest of the hole outside of
the culvert with hard-packed gravel.
The culvert was vertical but not
perfectly so. That is where the genius of
the installation came in.
I was able to lift the pole high enough
with a crane on a track loader that the
pole went down into the culvert, resting
on the plate at the bottom.
It was easy to block the pole exactly
vertical using three large wedges. Then
we filled the empty space around the
pole with dry playground sand packed
as hard as we could with a steel water
pipe with a cap on it.
Not sure how we will finish the
surrounding area. An aluminum cap
will cover the space around the pole.
If the pole ever needs to be removed
for maintenance, it will be easy to pull
it up out of the sand and replant when
finished.
Covid is still around and some
of us have not had it. Our latest
victim was my twenty-four-year-old
granddaughter. She was not too sick,
but I still worry. We try to wear masks
and avoid crowds, and this has worked
so far.
I think we will see if we can get more
Flagpole installation at Mills Apple Farm, Marine, Illinois, using no concrete for a thirtyfoot
flagpole. A four-foot by eight-inch culvert with an anchor plate fastened to the
bottom buried in packed grade eight gravel. The pole will be dropped into the culvert
and stabilized with dry packed playground sand capped with an aluminum collar.
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FGN | OCTOBER 2022 | 19

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October 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of October 2022