A Template For Family Christmas Tree Cutting Success

Our New Lake

On the farm, we plan out our regenerative grazing well ahead of time to ensure that the soil, plants, and livestock all benefit from the sybiotic relationships that exist from temporary peridic grazing between all three.Sometimes though the weather has other plans and we have to adapt. Haha case in point about two weeks ago we got just under 9 inches of rain in 36 hours. Now on our farm a majority of the rain still just soaked into the ground through healthy root channels and pore spaces from years of planned regenerative grazing. For farms for miles around us though most of that water quickly ran off and into creeks and rivers. This caused a creek on the back of our farm to flood well outside of its banks. When I went down that morning to check on the sheep I was quite surprised to see that we had a new lake on the farm!You see we have a 60 acre area of bottom ground (low elevation ground with deep soil near to a creek or river). When I got there about 25 acres was underwater!!! This was just part of it but you wan see the sheep's watering trough is underwater - haha they certainly weren't thirsty!Thankfully as the water rose the sheep just slowly meandered to the north to higher ground.  They do not like water at all and will not willingly ford even a shallow stream so I was quite glad they had not gotten cut off on one of the now islands of land that had just the day before been the higher areas of the low bottom fields!Later that afternoon, Judah and Ephraim went to look at our new lake and reported that they could not see the watering tank. I thought that was kind of strange but figured they just missed seeing it as it hadn't rained at all that day. As I pondered it for a few more hours though I got to thinking that they are actually very reliable little scouts and they know what it looks like. On a hunch I went back down there only to discover that upriver flooding had continued to pour more water into our bottom and we now had a 55 acre lake!!!!Everything in that video and pictures  that had been still land was now underwater and the sheep were at the very top of the field. A gate was promptly opened and they were let out of the low bottom fields completely onto the much drier upland fields. Thankfully everything was fine and stunningly the next day all the water had receded and our lake was gone. A new layer of top soil had been deposited on our thickly vegetated bottom fields as well which will be nice for long term fertility but in the short term made the forage quite muddy so even though we had originally planned for the sheep to graze those bottom fields for about two weeks (split into several 3-4 day subdivisions) they in fact only spent two days there. Well on the farm sometimes you just have to adapt and that's just what we did. We made a new grazing plan, skipped the rest of the bottoms for a few weeks until some rain could wash the dirt off of the grass and things could dry up a bit. Haha basically adapt and improvise. Thankfully the bottom does not flood very often (this is the first time in about 8 years) but when it does we can get a very large lake overnight + ducks :)I hope things aren't too wet your way.

Cutting Against The Grain

"There is nothing like a wild cut farm cedar tree for Christmas!

A hilarious tale from a farm Christmas long past. "There is nothing like a wild cut farm cedar tree for Christmas!Literally nothing like it. The smell is amazing the shape is always unique and the adventure that comes with it..... priceless. This year was no different. The first key to a good DIY farm Christmas Tree adventure is doing it last minute!Check! We decided to do it on a Saturday without any preparation (like figuring out ahead of time which tree - growing wild in the fence rows - we would cut. We also managed to start our adventure with less than an hour of daylight remaining in the day. So far so good. After gathering up the boys (3 of them now), I grabbed the chainsaw, Mariah grabbed the baby and we all hopped in the truck. After driving around the farm checking out various trees in all shapes and sizes we disembarked to take a closer look at a few. Judah informed us they were all too small. Mariah and I felt we had found a pretty good one. As we all hiked back to the truck we heard a howl from Judah "save me from the pokeys!"Then began the next phase of the adventure. Quill pulling......Thankfully not from a porcupine but Judah had managed to walk through some sort of plant with a lot of long barbs that really liked his pants! Well over 100 of them....As the sun slowly set things began to get quite chilly and the patience of the two older boys (one rather recently de-quilled) was waning. So we picked a compromise tree. It was time for the big moment. I grabbed the chainsaw, pulled the cord a few times and it roared to life. At least thats what it would have done in a normal story..... but our family and our stories are not very normal. Haha instead the chainsaw sputtered and died. I checked the fuel level and to my dismay it was completely empty. No problem just grab a little fuel right.......Well it was at home. I hadn't grabbed any to start because it would only take a second to cut the tree. Haha unfortunately I didn't have even a seconds worth of fuel. Needless to say there was some disappointment in the ranks. Murmurings of cold and poked legs was growing into open rebellion over a perceived shortage of food (it had after all been almost 4 hours since the older boys had eaten ;)But the mutiny was suppressed and we hopped back in the truck and raced home for fuel. After a lightning fast refill that would have put competitors in timber-sports competitions to shame (probably) we raced back to the farm where we had found a tree. Except now it was getting even darker... and upon further evaluation the previously picked tree was deemed unacceptable (at least we know where it is for next year ;). So another tree was selected. Though there was discussion about its shape, I made a quick decision and decided we would cut it while we still had light and then discuss the finer points of its shape.  Having cut the tree it was discovered that it lacked branches of any kind on one side (owing to the fact it was growing in a clump of 3 other trees). Always the problem solver, I suggested that we put the bald side in the corner at our house with the 3 good sides facing out. This compromise was quickly accepted owing in no small part to a lack of daylight, increasing cold, and a growing sense of hunger amongst those voting. As I called the boys over to pose next to me with our tree......  ....One last picture was accidentally snapped of the ground as my phone died. No other photographic devices had been brought along for the adventure so this moment of triumph remains photographically undocumented....After arriving home, warming up, getting new pants without any pokeys in them and eating some supper, we all gathered together and decorated our one of a kind tree. The smell of fresh cut cedar was amazing, the joy of telling stories about the ornaments as we placed them on the tree was heartwarming, and the memories of another family Christmas tree adventure are priceless.