Heavenly Smell
December 4, 2011
Christmas tree cutting down day. Peter did most of the work (well…).
Our search for a good smelling tree may finally be over. After too many years of subtle-at-best, mild-smelling Douglas Firs, it looks like a Monterey Pine may be the way to go. We’ll see when we bring it in tomorrow. It’s lying on the back porch right now and smells FANTASTIC.
So, we went to Silveyville Tree Farm for the very first time, a whole 15 minutes away, having heard about it for years. Cutting trees at a farm feels a little mass-production-esque…not quite as romantic as setting off into the mountains with an axe. On the other hand, it’s nice, I suppose, to let the forest be. Farms seem a nice way to go all around.
This one’s quite an operation: sleigh rides (sorta), some kind of weird tractor train ride, a fire to sit around, hot cider, free popcorn, and all kinds of stuff designed for kids that we steered clear of.
But the cutting, hauling, shaking (yeah.. shaking, that was new to me) and netting of the tree–the whole tree process–was well-oiled. They do move a lot of trees. They grow a lot of tree varieties and they offer lots of options for what you do with your tree. And there are a lot of people. I thought it was kind of early to get a tree, but about a million others thought this was a good day, too. The Silveyville people handled that well. Like pros.
For a bunch of years we’d gone to another much smaller farm just up the road, can’t remember the name, over by the Stevenson’s Creek bridge. A bit more rag tag. And then for the last three years, maybe, we’d gone to the nursery at Davis Lumber. Easy and fast.
This was a lot more of an outing but I think Peter liked running through the farm picking, and especially cutting, the tree. No problems here with child labor. (Newt Gingrich would be proud.)
Anyway, much more Christmas stuff to come. Tons that I’m not happy about (though I’m working at losing the grinchy-ness). But I can definitely live with a big giant tree in my living room for a few weeks making the house smell like we’re deep in a Sierra forest.
That part is pure heaven.
Life of Wry 
December 5, 2011 at 7:17 am
Monterey Pine is what we go with too. I used to love Noble Fir but they are way to expensive! Love Silveyville! When the kids were small, it was a 1/2 say event 😉 Now, it’s kind of quick in and out, but I too think it is a really nice place. If you go early in the morning it isn’t so crowded and it’s nice and foggy and FEELS more Christmasy 🙂
I hear you about the Grinch. My latest blog post is all about that (Grinch song included). A longer and more detailed version of my FB note last year, about feeling dissatisfied with Christmas.
Hope we can all find some good cheer. Having your house smell like pine and cookies is a wonderful start 🙂
December 5, 2011 at 8:15 am
We’ll probably try it again next year, and I like your idea of early in the morning. We got there at about 4 and it was pandemonium (though well-organized pandemonium). That had its own energy, but it’s not the kind I usually like around Christmas. But could definitely see it is a charming place.
Your comments earlier in the week are actually what got us to Silveyville. And I -did- read your blog and remembered well our conversations last year. In fact, it feels like we had those conversations about 2 months ago… amazing how fast the year went. Getting out the christmas boxes was startling because it feels like we JUST put them away..
Aaaaaaand…… here we go again for another year.
I got a world record start on the year and finished all the shopping last week. Most of it’s already wrapped and gone. Hoping that removes a lot of the grinchy-ness and I can now just sort of tinker at the rest of the season’s tasks.
Tree’ll go up today… so we can bask in the smell. Yay.