We'll See You  Soon!      The gift shoppe is ready ~ the trees are decorated ~ beautiful wreaths adorn the walls ~ garland drapes in the barn ~ the gumball machine is ready for challengers ~ the jukebox has new, classic Christmas tunes ~ straw mountain tunnels await children's climbing ~ and best of all, thousands of the best-looking, freshest Christmas trees are ready for your family to cut and take home.

Get a Tree and Visit With Santa

St Croix Valley Trees has just received word that there will be a special opportunity to visit with Santa Claus this year at our tree farm.  Santa will be making a visit Sunday, December 4 and Sunday, December 11 one to four in the afternoon.  More details can be found at STCVT web site: stcroixvalleytrees.com.   There will not be a charge for you to take pictures with Santa but a donation to a holiday charity - Trees for Troops, Salvation Army Red Kettle or Habitat for Humanity -  will be accepted and appreciated. 

Some People Are Really Excited for Christmas!

Cindy came out to St Croix Valley Christmas Trees to reserve her tree on a lovely, warm fall day.  She was so excited for the holiday season that she decided to decorate her tree while it stands in the field.  Of course she will add all the children's ornaments when she takes the tree home in early December but for now Cindy's special tree shines brightly in the sun on the hill in the field. 

The Straw Mountain Tunnels are Being Built

It's a beautiful day,not only because the sky is blue and the breeze fallish but because the straw mountain tunnels are getting built. It's a big deal every year to get enough good, new straw bales to build the mountain tunnel maze.  It's an even bigger deal to get great help here to work on construction.

Gathering Them In

All of us had a lot of fun bringing in all the pumpkins from the garden between the east Christmas tree fields.  Just like the apple crop this year, the pumpkin harvest was abundant.  All the grandchildren could take home as many pumpkins as they wanted for carving and there will still be many left for my decorating.  All these pumpkins will look nice in the yard when the pre-season Christmas tree guests come out to reserve their holiday tree.

Apples, Apples, Apples ~

They're ready!!  Wow, my apple trees are overloaded this year.  so many kinds, so many mouth-popping flavors, and the delicious smell.   The freezer is full of apple everything -- sauce, butter, slices and of course, pies and more pies!

One Last Look....

It's been so dry but still the prairie wildflowers hold onto their blooms.    Next comes the apple harvest and all those pies and then it will be time to gather in the pumpkins.  All the seasons are beautiful on the Christmas tree farm.

In the '27 vintage bi-plane

Oh my, what fun today roaring over the farm in a sleek, deep sky blue 1927 vintage bi-plane!  The tree farm looked pretty cool from a thousand feet up and I sure could tell that we will have an abundance of great-looking Christmas trees ready for this holiday season.

Only  downer -- it was just too little time!  New experiences are so exhilarating!  Maybe I should consider learning how to fly!

 

End of Summer Pleasures

Early September and the grass is green again because we have been blessed with an unexpected rain...Now the sky is deep blue...The trees glisten because the late summer dust has been washed off...A yellow canoe glides silently onto our lake...the beauty around us on a Christmas tree farm can be soul filling. 

It's the Great Minnesota Get Together and we'll be there, Sunday, September 4, 10-5.  The Christmas Tree display in the Horticulture building will be our home base for the day.   You're saying "Christmas trees at the Fair -- no way!  and where is that Horticulture building?"  It's the white building that sits up on a little hill, has the funky, multi-colored lights on at night and probably more importantly for lots of us, it's just across the street from the food building and next to the Skyride.

A Pretty Building Again

Maintenance -- just the word itself is tedious.  There is ALWAYS something that needs to be built, repaired, cleaned or improved so that when you come to cut your Christmas tree this next holiday season everything here will look as good as we can possibly make it. But one thing in particular has been tough to do this summer ... paint.

The paint can says don't paint when it is above 85, humid, or rain possible in the next few days.  Really?!..well that has just about eliminated all but a couple days this summer.  Fortunately, my life and the weather just happened to mesh for three days and I did get one of the paint-peeling buildings all spiffed up.  I like this new, red color.  This is actually a very special building on the farm!!

It may not be Shakespeare but it can still be a dilemma......   To mow or not to mow - that is the question.  A Christmas tree field filled with beautiful wildflowers....they should be mowed but I think I won't, not right now, anyway.   It's just too pretty to cut them all down today  so I think I'll just wait until a fall frost starts the job for me and then I'll go in and fisnish up with my mower.   Besides, I think there are plenty of other fields that will keep me busy for  weeks.

M ow, Mow, and MORE MOWING
 Hey, no blogs in weeks - what's up?   In a  word,  MOWING!  All the Christmas trees are sheared by hand, one at a time, but all the fields are mowed many, many times during the summer.  It would be nice to do our daily hours of mowing  earlier in the day when it is not quite so hot and sticky but that isn't the way it works.

It's time... the real start of summer on this Christmas tree farm has begun.  The summer solstice has just passed and now the long days of Christmas tree shearing take over our lives.  The work begins with the long-needle Norway Pines and will quickly move onto the Spruce fields.  Every single tree is hand sheared with a long handled serrated knife in one hand and a clipper in the other hand. The first days of shearing can be some of the hardest because it will take some time for muscles that haven't been used for the winter months to adjust to new work demands.

A picture of a rain gauge ----Why?!  and why the frustration?     Trees need rain to grow strong and full and beautiful and too often areas around us get abundant rain and by comparison we get scant little.  There are lots of ideas and theories floating around out there why our general area northeast of the Twin Cities is often missed but we really don't know the answer.  Saturday was a "rainy day" but all we have in our rain gauge is about a tenth of an inch.

Yesterday it was blue skies and sunshine all over and today it is rain, marvelous rain!  It has been so dry  for almost a month that many of  the Christmas trees were beginning to look very, very thirsty.   Look closely at the image of the  white pine branch, heavy with pollen-filled male cones,  and you will see sparkling droplets of rain at the end of each needle -- looks like  tree-farmer diamonds to me!   My early-blooming peonies are looking very refreshed.  Life on the Christmas tree farm is looking beautiful, indeed.

The prairie is bursting with purple lupine..... and the dragonflies, swallowtail butterflies, bumblebees, deer and pheasants and all kinds of  wild critters are in summer-time heaven.