In the past we have generally gone out to get our Christmas tree in early December, but after realizing that the trees are cut much earlier than that, we decided this year to go out much sooner.Yesterday was Monday, November 20. Our local garden center told us that they had just received their shipment of trees on the weekend (we were their third customer), and that the trees had been harvested here in central Wisconsin three days earlier (Nov 17).
This batch of trees will sit outside for weeks now desiccating in the wind. We won't put ours up inside the house until early December, but in the meantime it sits in a bucket in the garage soaking up water.
And as a bonus the garage smells like pine.
I don't know about Wisconsin, but here in Oregon, almost all trees are harvested by helicopters. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteSheldon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx0AUrx1pbo
So many people say "call in the Calvary" instead of "call in the cavalry."
Deleteup until about the 1980s, my parish (and the whole diocese) followed the julian calendar, which meant that christmas was on january 7th. late in the afternoon of christmas eve (the 24th), my mother would go out and buy our christmas tree, usually getting a very good bargain. the tree would be put up a day or two after 'american christmas' and come down after january 9, after the feast of jordan and the blessing of the holy water.
ReplyDeletesome time in the 1980s, the bishop had had enough of the two calendar system and the problems it was causing. he changed the whole diocese to the gregorian calendar, so we now celebrate on the 25th.
I-)
Ok I'm curious -- the garden center doesn't get any more shipments of trees?
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't sound right that a single batch of trees will be delivered and then will sit around desiccating in the wind. Around here, the local tree lots get nightly shipments of trees coming in. When I worked at a Christmas tree lot in high school (a fair number of the tree lots are run as fundraisers by youth groups), one of things you did after hours was accept new trees and prep them and put them out in the lot for the next day's customers.
If you really want a fresh one, you go down to the central rail yards and buy one as it comes off the train, out of the freight car. That's a bit cheaper, but you have to get it home yourself which can be a hassle since its at least a 30 minute drive from this side of town to the rail yard. (The local paper publishes the directions how to get there...)
They may get another shipment in mid-December if these sell out, but that new batch might also be trees cut in November that have been drying out at the source tree farm. Not harvesting until mid-December would risk not being able to harvest because of snow conditions.
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