Berta’s sister, Mary Ann, and her husband, Ryan, visited over the weekend. With them, we went to select our Christmas tree.
What bothers me about this year, and last year, is that we’ve been trying to go out for a “cut your own tree” experience. I mean, what’s the point of going out to get a tree form a tree farm if you aren’t cutting down your own tree? You might as well buy a tree from one of the stands on the side of the road.
So we went out in search for the tree farm. It’s strange that I don’t think to use the internet to place the tree farm, but just drive out aimlessly to locate it. And this is how we ended up at the wrong tree farm again this year.
It’s actually not so bad. The Farmer in Lyndell is where we ended up. It’s a little farm with a baling machine and plenty of people to help you with your tree. The trees are $9 per foot.
What is bad about the experience is that they’ve got all of the equipment for going out into the farm and cutting down your own tree, but they don’t really let you do it. I mean, they let you do it, but they’ve already cut down all of the good trees.
Instead, they keep a bevy of pre-cut and bound trees piled against a fence near the baler. There are about 20-30 trees in stands open on display. You can look over them, choose one, have it baled and taken to your car where they strap it on the roof with twine. Then, they replace that tree in the stand with one of the pre-cut, pre-baled trees sitting on the fence. So you don’t get your pick of the trees. You get to pick from a subset of the good trees they’ve already cut down. What a sham!
Bernard’s Tree Farm, in contrast, makes you take a saw into the field and cut your own. There are no pre-cut trees. And the farm is enormous. You get the pick of whatever’s out there, not just what’s left after the good stuff is taken.
Basically, they’ve robbed me of my Christmas spirit. It should be about picking and cutting down your own tree. Instead of dragging a tree cart and saw around a barren field, I could have gone to a roadside sale. What I should have done is driven a few more miles in search of Bernard’s. I will definitely do that next year.
