Word: kyles
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...other tracts of the family's 5,000 acres (2023 hectares) of oranges, tangerines and grapefruits, which lie across four counties in central Florida. When Matthew radioed in that some of his pump pipes had frozen, a setback that could result in a good deal of lost fruit, Kyle summoned a stoic voice and replied, "We can only do what...
...Kyle, 27, has spent most of his life in the groves, which have been in the family since his great-grandfather's day. His first memories are of riding a tractor beneath mile after mile of rich, dark green foliage dappled with orange and yellow. For Kyle and his brother, punishment for misbehavior as teens meant picking fruit for an entire day. "I worked all day and hadn't even filled a tub three-fourths full," Kyle recalls, noting that a good picker can fill three or four tubs, which hold 90 lb. each, in an eight-hour...
...with miles of hoses, deliver water through micro-jets from the time the temperature hits 32°F (0°C) until it returns to above freezing in the morning. By 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 10, there was nothing left but hope and luck, and tall, soft-spoken Kyle headed home for a few hours of shut-eye - sleep disturbed by the knowledge that the family had already incurred 1% crop damage. But for the eighth morning in the past 10, he was up before dawn driving through the groves...
...family could remember a cold spell this protracted, not even since the freezes of the 1980s wrought more than a billion dollars in citrus losses. At 5:45 a.m. on Jan. 11, when the temperature read 25°F (-4°C), Kyle yanked an early-season orange from a tree. He sliced the top third and the juice ran freely, making him think they may have squeaked through another night. But with a second cut through the middle, Kyle shook his head. "This is not good," he said, running his knife through slush, as it's called...
...result, it became a race to get the damaged fruit off the trees before they lost any more quality. "Now is when we throw my carefully designed harvesting plan out the window," Kyle lamented, "and pick as hard as we can to get the fruit to the processor...