Trees and Wreaths, oh my!

Wow. What a couple of days!

In a normal year, we would go to the Conklin Tree Farm on the Friday or Thursday before the Saturday of the tree sale and load the trees onto the trailer and then drive them in on Saturday morning. We've come to rely on the preparation done by the Conklins - the trees would all be stacked up, baled and ready for us to load. It would take about an hour to load and then we'd be back home eating a hot lunch and proud of ourselves for loading the trees.

This year we got a call last Monday from Roger Conklin telling us that he was short of help and would not have all of our trees by Friday. Well, that gave us an idea. What he needed was labor, and what we had was eleven Farm Stay 2 students arriving on Wednesday. So Donna and I proposed to Roger that we bring our crew over on Thursday afternoon and help bring in the trees, and then come back on Friday to load the trees. Roger accepted this as a solution and we came over on a beautiful Thursday afternoon. It was a big job, but by the end of the afternoon, we were only half done. By the end of the day we had a new appreciation for how much work goes into harvesting and baling the trees.

So we went back with half of the crew on Friday morning and helped bring in the rest of the trees. There were almost 40 Balsams left to drag out of the woods and five more Frasers. The day started well. The Balsam is lighter than the Fraser, and we all appreciated the relief. We quickly had the trees lined up along the field road. Roger got the baler ready and we started baling the trees. But then the baler ran out of twine. Roger phoned back to the wreath shop for more twine and then we waited. And waited. And waited. Our crew took advantage and played some more thicket. I got impatient and hungry. It was lunch time. Finally, the twine came and we were back in beeswax. We made short work of the baling and then loaded the trees onto the trailer. Then we had the last five Fraser firs to load - the five biggest! Easily those are 50 to 60 pound trees and took three people to load on the top of the trailer. Then we drove up and loaded the wreaths and garlands and checked the tire pressure on the loaded trailer. By the time we were driving home to the Land School it was almost 2 pm. We were hungry and tired, but triumphant - and we had a hot meal waiting for us. Homemade french fries, fresh bread, Land School squash soup. We made a decision to have me go into Lake Country on Friday afternoon to try to beat the worst of the snowstorm. We didn't quite miss the snowstorm. In fact by 6 pm Friday, the snow was coming down pretty fast. But we made it and then watched the snow pile up overnight.

Saturday morning was bright and beautiful. LCS alum Katie, alum Kilian, and his friend Oscar all came over to help unload the trailer and set up the stand. LCS students Ruby, Serena, Lucia, and Dorothy helped measure and label trees and put bows on wreaths. By mid-morning the customers were coming pretty steady. With a fresh coat of snow, the city looked ready for winter holidays, and people were in a great mood. The trees were fresher than ever and wreaths were beautiful, as usual. Just at the right time, LCS parent Kerri Westenberg arrived to help welcome people and check them off as they took their trees and wreaths.

By the end of the day, we had an empty trailer and tired bodies. Thanks so much to everyone who worked, who purchased, and who brought all of their great energy to this important Land School event.

Tree coming through the baler.

Tree ready to bale.