The days of Christmas Past....our Tree Farm

Until the year 2000 we sold Christmas trees every December from our front yard. We don't grow the trees ourselves....our "tree farm" is of a different sort....confusing to most people, unless you live in Indiana. My dear HH is a professional forester, his work is diverse to say the least, but in terms of tree farms his services are provided on a consultant basis to private landowners here in Indiana. Nothing grows better in Indiana than trees! They pop up whereever there's a bare spot of ground and a month without disturbance. In our yard the spring thaw shows a yard full of inch high maples and oaks with one leaf apiece.....trying to stake their claim before I mow them off when the grass begins to grow.

Farmers here would say that the major Indiana crop is corn, or soybeans, but in truth the entire state would be a forest, and a smattering of cranberry bogs, if left to it's own natural devices. Only years of clearing and cultivating keep the woods in check. It's a beautiful place. Not, I might mention, a good place for a garden.....we have far too much shade for that (and of course the deer think my garden is the corner grocery).

Tree farms here in Indiana are nothing more than a formal "governmental" designation for land that is allowed to grow it's natural crop.....trees! We live on a tree farm....but not a Christmas Tree farm. The trees weren't planted in straight rows and we don't sell them one at a time for someone's yard. Our "crop" is harvested when the tree grows big enough to be useful for beautiful furniture (oak,walnut), cabinetry (oak, maple, poplar), or flooring (all of the above plus some hickory and other miscellaneous species). Some of the most beautiful wood in the nation comes from our Indiana hardwood forests (which, I might add is a "renewable" resource).

Though our tree farm doesn't have much of a connection to Christmas, our yard does. Every year from the time our oldest was 5 or 6 we used to haul in a truckload of Christmas trees grown by another Forester we know in Indiana.

We did a booming business because we sold a unique tree.... a Christmas Tree that wasn't painted green! (Can you imagine!) Frankly, until I married my forester husband I had no idea they were painting the trees! I was shocked! We gained notoriety and a modest following among people who were just as surprised as I. Our girls have fond memories of the smell of fresh cut pines staked to fill our front yard entirely...here in the middle of a hardwood forest. I can't say we made buckets of money but we always made a nice profit, (right at Christmas time!) and for us it was a tradition that provided the girls with a way to earn some Christmas money and learn the value of work.

Once our oldest daughter graduated from High School in 2000 we found it too difficult to keep up with the small Christmas Tree business while also running our own Forestry Consulting company. We had to give something up. It was a sad decision and the two girls left at home were very sad the first Christmas that our yard was left naked all December.

As for me I have fond memories of the trees, the time spent together as a family, the wonderful people we met, and the fun of living "among the pines" for a time. I don't really miss being tied to the house for 4 weeks before Christmas while everyone else is out catching good sales!

I miss the nightly tradition of walking down our quarter mile drive and lighting 20 or so kerosene lanterns, and feeling that our little log cabin was the ultimate Christmas setting. But when I really think about it all the things that make Christmas special are still here.........in my heart.....even without a yard full of Christmas trees.