First you start early. Our baker girls have been stewing about this day for weeks. It is the day before Thanksgiving when we have to come up with one hundred or more fresh pies, and one of them will be gone. If we had a big staff a day like this one would be, pardon the expression, easy as pie. However, we don’t. Three people are about the largest number we ever have working at one time, and hand-made pies take time.

The answer is planning and making extra pie filling, extra crusts and toppings. When 6:00 A.M. came this morning two of us had all the ingredients, well, almost all, in place. Stuff materialized out of the coolers and the freezer and morphed into pies. By 6:15, one of us had 32 apple pies in the ovens.

At the same time, I was scurrying around making pumpkin pie filling and by the time the second batch of fruit pies were out of the ovens I had 26 pumpkin pies ready to bake.

While I was doing that, my senior baker was assembling the miscellaneous pies. At 11:30 all of our orders were out of the ovens and our junior helper, who came in later, was putting them in pre-labeled boxes.

It gives me a great sense of satisfaction when everything goes well and today, for once, we had no glitches. Life is good.

November is the time to shift gears from apple picking to Christmas tree choosing.

We have a lovely patch of Scotch pines across the road from the apple shed just the right height for most homes. For those who want to get the jump on the Holidays, we offer tags to attach to trees now while the weather is good. After you have tagged your tree, you will tell us when you want it, and we will have it cut, cleaned, wrapped and setting in water just waiting to be picked up on the appointed day.

Tagging ahead of time gives you one more fun day at the farm in good weather and guarantees that your tree will be ready regardless of the weather.

We’ll ask for a $15.00 deposit when you tag your tree and you can pay the rest when you pick it up.

If you are not a big fan of Scotch pines, we will have Balsam firs available after Thanksgiving.

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It is not too early to order your Thanksgiving pies. There will be around a hundred pie orders, which is not a problem, but it is easier for the bakers to plan if they know what you’ll need as far ahead of time as possible.

Nothing finishes off a good Thanksgiving dinner like a fresh handmade, award winning pie from Mills Apple Farm. We consistently win top ribbons at the Madison County Fair, and in October we were named Best Pie by the St. Louis Riverfront Times. Treat your family to the best!

We are switching from “serious” apple picking to “recreational” picking as of Saturday  October 16^{th .}

We define recreational picking as going on a treasure hunt for good apples and doing it for the fun of it, not caring much about what you find. Wagons will take you to the Granny Smiths which have the most fruit still on the trees and you can walk from there to search for other varieties..

The reasons for the change is that most of our apples are already picked, on the ground or in the cooler. In addition, Fugis and Braeburns, which should be ready now, did not produce crops, in the case of Fugi and Braeburns froze during our little frost two weeks ago.

The bakery is open and pumpkins are available for the picking. Check out our pumpkin festival scheduled for tomorrow, October 17^th.

Fond restaurant in Edwardsville served a fabulous dinner Saturday evening out in the middle of the orchard.  The ambiance of the orchard, along with the cool crisp air of the evening, simply enhanced the experience of a exquisitely fine dinner put on by Amy Zupanci.   The wine undoubtedly contributed to the lively conversation among the guests and made for an evening that will long be remembered.

Apparently photos taken by Bellville News Democrat  photographer have been picked up by the AP (Associated Press).  If you Google “Mills Apple Farm” and AP, they are all over the place.   From a San Diego website to a Florida website — one photo showed up on a website in India.  Pretty exciting stuff!

…a new Scag lawn mower as a birthday present from myself to me.

Why would a new mower make a man happy, you might ask?  Well this is not just any mower. It has a fancy seat to cushion bumps for a tender old back. It has power enough to cut through knee-high foxtail, and at 1500 pounds, it is heavy enough to last the rest of my life and do a lot of work in the meantime. Lastly, it is powered by a three-cylinder Kubota diesel engine that will never have to have the carburetor cleaned or the spark plugs replaced.

It joins an older Scag that got a new seat and clutch. Now, we will never have an excuse for the place looking ratty.

I like the Scags, like my AgTec sprayer; they are made in this country and parts are readily available. I don’t think they will ever wear out. Another justification is that they are strong and agile enough that I can mow in the orchards and go around loaded fruit limbs.  This means less fruit loss and less wear and tear on the bigger mower tractor. Faster too: the Scag will mow at twelve miles per hour if the grass is not too high and the sod is smooth.

This is a vast improvement over the three tinny twenty-inch push mowers we had thirty-five years ago. We had one for each son. They used to mow in formation around the front yard, one behind the other. Even though there was not more than a half acre to mow in those days, the novelty wore off, and they soon thought it was a drag. It was not long before we figured out how to hitch all three mowers together and pull them with a little tractor. Then only one kid had to mow. The contraption sounded like a large hornets nest with all of the little engines running at once.

This has been a challenging year for grass control. It seemed as if it grew high enough over night to need mowing the next morning. If you only have a small yard, no problem, but consider the problem of keeping thirty acres looking nice.

I have often thought about the amount of natural resources Americans spend cutting grass. Perhaps we would do better if each family had a flock of sheep—but that is grist for another day.

Jerry Mills, the owner and founder of Mills Apple Farm, is glad that no two days are ever the same – it means that no two days are ever boring.

Most folks wake up and eat breakfast with a news program on in the background. Some might go for a jog or take a dog for a walk before driving to work. Things are done a bit differently at Mills Apple Farm. It’s a family farm, so everyone has to pitch in. The hours are long, but everyone enjoys working them, and that’s what matters most.

On a “typical” day, Jerry wakes with the sun to the sound of a crowing rooster. After eating a hearty breakfast, he begins his workday; this is usually around 7 a.m. He starts by completing the routine tasks: a zoo of farm animals needs care, machinery needs to be repaired, and the orchards and fields need tending.

Meanwhile, Jerry’s daughter, Sherry, arrives at 9 a.m. to run the store, which sells in-season produce, baked goods, preserves, and specialty items. Yoda, a large grey tomcat, is also on hand to help … when he isn’t idyllically napping on top of the cash register.

Meanwhile, mother-daughter team Charlotte Seifried and Lindsey Seifried-Turley buzz through the bakery, making pies, cakes, and cookies. Sometimes, they recruit Jerry to make piecrust, which is a top-secret recipe; after all, Mills Apple Farm pies consistently win awards at the Madison County Fair.

At noon, the Mills Apple Farm family eats lunch together while comparing the proverbial apples and oranges of the day. Customers are still trickling into the store, so all eyes habitually watch the front door.

After lunch, Charlotte and Lindsey finish baking and clean the kitchen before going home, while (Shhhhh!) Jerry occasionally sneaks away to take a nap. After his nap, he still has several more tasks to occupy his time. It’s a large farm, and there’s always mowing or watering to do. Sometimes he needs to run into town for more supplies.

By 6 p.m. the to-do lists have been completed, and folks are going home. Jerry, a true workaholic, is usually the only straggler left on the farm.

As peaches and apples ripen and come into season, friends and family are recruited to help man the farm and the bakery. With more visitors, more apples need to be picked, more tractors need to be driven, more pies need to be baked, and apples need to be pressed for cider. Though not all at Mills Apple Farm are related by blood, everyone is considered family.

As night falls on the farm, the workers and farm animals sleep while the apples continue to grow, making a continuous cycle of farm work. In the morning, the rooster will crow, and Jerry will wake with the sun. No day is ever boring….

Well, we’re off to a new season here at Mills Apple Farm!  Right now, all indications are that we’ll have a great crop of Peaches and Apples.   We’ll be opening tomorrow with the earliest of our Peaches ready for picking.

We’ve also been busy this Spring and early Summer with a few new construction jobs underway.  So you’ll have to excuse our dust and disarray; hopefully we’ll be done before too long and you’ll be pleased with the changes.

In the meantime, come on out and pick a few Peaches!  Our bakery is also open, although you may want to call ahead if you have a particular request.