in search of a Christmas Tree...

We like to support our local Christmas tree farmers by buying our tree from them.  I’m not sure if someone who “consumes” a locally grown Christmas tree is a locavore – but I think so!  These trees are not trucked from a long distance.  Not only are we supporting one of our friends but the amount of fossil fuel used in transporting the trees is minimized.

Jill especially likes the natural (not cropped or trimmed) fir trees with a lot of space between the branches for the ornaments to hang down.  Last year, Del Klicker, asked why we were buying a “natural” tree from him when we could just cut one at our family cabin.  Del’s tree farm is essentially adjacent to our mountain property.  So this past summer we began looking at trees and spotted some that might work as a Christmas tree.

Today was a warm mid-fifty degree December day in Walla Walla.  Genius son Nick (his terminology) suggested that we go up to our cabin and look for a Christmas tree. He said if we didn’t find one we could just buy one from the Klickers.

Things look much different in WW’s Blue Mountains in the winter than they do in the summer.  All of the brush, grasses and deciduous trees have died back and/or lost their leaves.  By contrast, the coniferous (Christmas type) trees and interestingly the ferns were bright green.  They really stood out against the grey/brown backdrop in a way that they don’t in the summer.

Today it was really obvious that the coniferous/potential Christmas trees tend to grow in clumps below the mature trees.  Go figure – they grow where the mature trees drops their pine/fir cones.

Nick standing by one of our Christmas tree options

In these circumstances, cutting a Christmas tree would actually be thinning out the trees and giving the remaining trees more room to grow.  We decided that some future tree thinning and brush clearing would be in order to improve the health of the forest.

We did find a Christmas tree and we even saw over a dozen deer.  It was a delightful father/son afternoon in the woods.  We are fortunate to be living in a part of the world where cutting your own Christmas tree is even possible.

This is one of the deer that we saw

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