It was overwhelming. We had six days until we would open to sell Christmas trees. We had no idea what to expect. We had no idea what we were doing. The only thing we knew with certainty was the first step - clean out the shed to make it usable for heating hot chocolate and storing equipment for what we'd eventually call "the harvest". A lot of history had collected in the shed. From fishing poles to old chairs to antique saws to buckets. So. Many. Buckets. We'd learn shortly the need for endless buckets; however, in this moment we laughed about how anyone could have so many! We casually set aside a baseball and catcher's gear. I'm not sure we thought again about those last items until 4 years later.
One of our missions has been about supporting the community, beyond growing Christmas trees. As Arthur has grown, so has his love for baseball. Sponsoring a baseball team seemed like a great way to align our priorities. Hortonville Youth Sports now has an official Grandpa Dan's Christmas Tree Farm Baseball Team. Catchy, right? We like to cheer the full name from the stands way more for entertainment than advertising. There's a lot of pride in seeing the tree farm logo on t-shirts of kids learning teamwork and having fun. After their first game, Dan and I independently remembered the baseball gear we discovered in the shed. Turns out Grandpa Dan was an avid softball player, and his grandson confirmed Grandpa Dan would have supported Arthur's baseball team. It seems the baseball equipment foreshadowed the farm team.
What seemed like excessive buckets turned out to be essential. The buckets consistently fill up with over 2000 saplings each spring. Honestly, we even bought a few more buckets to support spring planting. 2025 was no exception as we planted 2050 of many varieties - fraser, balsam, concolor, and canaan firs; black and blue spruce; white and scotch pine. And these two thousand and fifty trees will be ready before the year two thousand and fifty! I like to think that Grandpa Dan was chuckling with deeper insight as we laughed about the number of buckets. He understood what we were overlooking - these would hold the future of our farm. Touché, Grandpa Dan.
This spring fell into a natural flow of work. This year has felt like the first time we've been doing the right work at the right time rather than playing catch up. In the now repetitive motion of prepping, planting, transplanting, and then caring for the new saplings with basal pruning and mowing, my mind wandered to a "game" my family played growing up. I think it was over a family vacation, perhaps during a long drive. We decided to assign an animal to each family member. The most memorable and still referenced were my brother Joe's and my animals. Joe was deemed a sloth. Maybe an unfair designation when we were on vacation, a time defined by relaxing; however, the animal stuck. (Quick disclaimer: My oldest brother is not really lazy, but when you're self-proclaimed good at everything, we needed to level set a little bit.) The second animal that has stood the test of time was mine, a duck. My brothers selected this animal because they said I often appear collected on the surface while underneath my legs are paddling like crazy to keep up. The analogy is as visual as it is accurate. At the farm I try to calm the movement and chaos under the surface, and I'm aiming for something different now: a tree with roots. I don't mind complexities and depth within or below; I believe we all have them. But rather than webbed feet frantically trying to stay afloat, what about unseen roots grounding and steadying us? It's not always. It's not even as much as I'd like. Yet when I can, I try to have my duck-like personality foreshadow a tree-like composure.
Finally, in early spring, we had an impromptu lunch under the large white pines in our back acreage. Somehow we found ourselves under the trees, covered in ketchup and pine needles. There's not a long story behind this foreshadowing, simply the realization that the white pines we planted along the T are reaching their "leaping" stage (trees are said to sleep, creep, and then leap over their first 3 years). The vision we had for the white pines is starting to come true. It's beautiful to witness.
Baseball, buckets, animals, and pines have foreshadowed our current place at the farm. Some pleasantly surprising, some hard earned over 4 years of work. We like both versions, as we stand in the peace of this foreshadowed future.
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