Poles are Here!

After several months of shopping far and wide for the perfect poles, Howard finally located the perfect supplier:  Carter Lumber Company, located 7 miles from our farm.  They even offered with free delivery out to our hops yard!  "Shopping Locally"  is the way to go.

Time to bring out the auger.  Our son, Howie and his wife to be, Amber were quite a team in drilling all 88 four foot deep holes in our new hops yard.  Our good friend, Jeff was there supervising. They had it done in no time.

Now the moment everyone has been waiting for, time to bring out the big toy to set one of these poles up.

Howard acquired this new toy last fall while we were on a trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  It is a trac hoe that was looking for a new owner.  Howard convinced me that it would be easier to set hops poles with this. In my mind, that was good enough reason to invest in this little "monster".

Here we go,  the pole is dragged into place by Jeff and his ATV.

Up it goes! (While Jeff pulls some last minute loose dirt out of the hole)

Up!

Up!

Up!

It is set in the hole.

Wait a minute, how do we check to see that it is straight up and down?  Did anybody think to bring a level?

No, but not a problem, our engineer son, can quickly download a level "app" to his I-phone.  Kids and their technology...way to go Howie!

One pole up, 87 more to go....