Shopping for a live Christmas tree always brings back childhood memories of going from tree lot to tree lot with my parents, the scent of fresh greenery, and carefully considering several candidates before finding just the right tree to grace our living room during the holiday season.
I've carried on the tradition of having a fresh-cut Christmas tree in my own home for the holiday, and in recent years, we've made the trek out to Blake Farms in Armada, Michigan, to purchase our tree.
Blake's may be better known as a cider mill to many living in the area, but I found out that they also sold Christmas locally harvested trees when I was searching for a Michigan tree a couple of years ago. We went out to the farm, selected our tree, got a free cup of hot cider as we made our purchase, and loaded the tree onto the top of our car for the ride home.
A new tradition was born that year!
Blake Farms is a family owned and operated orchard and cider mill established in 1946. The operation grew over the years and includes over 500 acres of orchard and farmland with crops like apples, peaches, pumpkins, and Christmas trees. Blake's was one of Michigan's first "pick your own" orchards in Michigan, so offering visitors a change to cut their own Christmas trees was a natural outgrowth of that operation.
The Christmas tree and greenery season starts at Blake's the weekend before U.S. Thanksgiving, when visitors can catch a wagon ride out to the Christmas tree fields to cut their own tree or check out the farm's lot with fresh pre-cut trees from the fields, wreaths, garlands, and other greenery.
We eagerly looked forward to the drive out to Blake's this year. We wandered the lot, drawn mostly to the several varieties of fir trees. We like fir trees because they seem to hold their needles longer, and their branches are usually strong enough to hold heavier ornaments.
We asked ourselves many questions about the various trees: Were they too tall? Were they too short? Were the tree trunks straight? Was there a branch on top of any of the trees that would hold my tree topper?
Halloween decorations still dotted part of the farm. A hay-bale face monitored our progress as a witch flew overhead on her broomstick!
We finally settled on a roly poly Douglas fir tree that ended up taking four strands of our LED lights to decorate, compared to last year's slimmer model that only carried two light strings.
A few minutes later, our tree was on its way to the shaker machine (to shake out loose needles). By the time I paid for the tree and collected our hot cider, the tree was bundled for the trip home and Tim was using his trucker hitch knots to fasten the tree to the top of his Mariner.
Living in Michigan makes it pretty easy to get a fresh-cut tree as the state is among the largest producers of Christmas trees in the nation.
Artificial trees may have their fans, but I like having a real Christmas tree. A trip to the tree farm is a great way to spend the day with your family, and I like that fact that tree farms provide jobs and income for local farmers with a recyclable and renewable crop.
Besides, it just doesn't seem like Christmas without a real tree to me!
© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved
It's been years since I've had a real tree! I miss them but it just hasn't been practical of late.
Good to see you using your Flip video cam!
Posted by: Becks Davis | December 09, 2009 at 05:38 PM
Becks-Yup, this was the first test of my Flip cam. I've filmed a few things, but happened to catch this little clip that I didn't have to edit (turned around as I was headed to pay and saw the guy putting our tree on the shaker). I figured it was a good one to use to set up my YouTube account. I haven't addressed the whole issue of learning how to edit video yet...
Love our real trees. I didn't like it when my parents went to a fake tree at one point...and I've had a real tree ever since I've been in my own house :)
Posted by: Dominique King | December 09, 2009 at 06:22 PM