February 2019 - 43

NOTES FROM THE FARM
Year 15 of column-writing begins with lucky landing
JERRY MILLS
Mills Apple Farm
jerry@millsapplefarm.com
the soil and hope that does the job.
Visitors in the night. Our
Early cold set us up for a long winter.
Most of November was below freezing at
night. I can't remember that happening,
ever, while California burned.
Tool of the month: A magic
sapling puller. Deciduous saplings
growing inside an evergreen tree are
a pain to remove. They often reach
the top of the tree before we notice
them. Cutting at ground level usually
stimulates them to send out even more
growth and before long, they may
dominate the poor evergreen.
The puller in the accompanying
photo is a middle-sized machine and
does a good job on trunks up to three
inches in diameter.
You simply squeeze it to open the
jaws and place it on the tree. Hook
a chain to the clevis and lift or pull,
depending on type of machine you
have, and out it comes, roots and all.
Don't tell anyone but we have some of
those suckers growing in high density
apples too. But not for long, I hope.
Find pullers in forestry catalogs.
Getting out the black rot is going
to be a challenge. I am anxious to
be started. The plan is to remove all
of the leaves and rotted fruit from
under the trees using hand rakes.
A person working each side of the
row should be able to do it, a bit at
a time. The Weed Badger would do
it easier but I seem to ding up the
trees and break the Badger too much.
After that, we'll spray the trees and
Pocahontas Road is one of those
improved farm-to-market roads found
around the country that are a perfect
runway for landing a single-engine
Beechcraft on at 9 p.m. That happened
in late November. The pilots were on
their way from Texas to Michigan
when they ran out of gas, and were
fortunate enough be able to land on
our road. The next morning local
flying friends helped them refuel and
take off, to finish their trip.
As an old military pilot, running
out of gas is a capital sin, and having
it happen at night is even worse.
Landing on a country road takes a
little skill, but finding a suitable one
in pitch black darkness at night and
missing the power lines that run along
one side and cross it at almost every
house is downright lucky.
Pocahontas Road is three miles
long. It is wide, smooth and has one
curve in the middle. It apparently is
a magnet for misfortunes. There have
been at least a dozen motor vehicle
accidents, including one fatality, just
in our one-mile center section, and
that does not include collisions with
deer. We can now claim one aircraft
landing, too. Towns at each end with
bars may account for the accidents.
A deer story. One Saturday night,
about 20 years ago, a car driven by
two girls collided with a pregnant
deer one-half mile down the road
from our farm. Two fawns were
ejected. One was killed but the other
survived. A son brought it home. The
first problem was to find nutrition
for it at that time of night. All stores
were closed.
A sapling puller removing weed trees from under white pines at Mills Apple Farm, Marine,
Illinois. Photo: Jerry Mills
We called around and were able
to find a gallon of frozen colostrum
milk at a neighbor's dairy. We kept the
fawn in our kitchen. It gained almost
a pound a day, until the wildlife
folks came and took it away. I often
wondered what happened to it.
January marks the beginning of my
15th year of writing these columns.
It is fun, especially when readers
write and tell me that some bit of
information was helpful. VGN
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February 2019

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