Planting Christmas Trees

The following story was written by Scott Macleod, who helped with spring planting one year. Here is his version. He was 14 years old at the time.

“Welcome to Hadlee’s Christmas tree farm” the sign read. The property was straight out of a country music song. Off a “go nowhere” road stood the faded barn, the rusted tractor and the mandate Chevy pickup on cinder blocks The house had a rustic authenticity about it, with its red bricks and wooden porch with rockers. The fields behind the house were lined with evenly spaced Christmas trees. 

I managed to arrive here by being asked by my friend if I wanted to help plant Christmas trees. This didn’t sound like the weekend I had envisioned, of watching television and thinking of excuses for why I didn’t go to Chinatown. Plus manual labour does not score well on my excite-o-meter. “You get 7 bucks an hour” was music to my ears.

My backwards hat and baggy shorts must have stuck out like a sore thumb in a place where checkered shirts and Ford truck hats were staple fashion accessories. After being explained the extremely scientific process of planting trees I was put to work. That’s when I met Mike. Mike was 25 and normally worked for the municipality doing anything. He asked me questions like “where do you live?”,what grade are you in?” He told me about his golden years in high school drinking himself silly. But with good cause because there is nothing to do there. Mike then pointed out that I was planting the trees wrong again. I imagined that planting would be marked off at each point and be precise. This was obviously not one of those genetic farms. Each row of trees had to be straight so people could walk through. This was carried out by tying a rope between two poles and planting along the rope.

There was much confusion about the word “straight”. The workers felt that the line was crooked, seeing it drift off to the left by 10 degrees. Mr Hadlee was in his mid forties (I was not going to ask my employer how old he was). He has owned the farm for more than 15 years and was just beginning to make some money. Turns out that Christmas trees is big business. The whole operation is more of an experience than just choosing one. You ride out into the fields pulled by horses on a sleigh. Choose your tree, cut it yourself. Or, you can check out the gift shop/garage with Christmas crafts. A tree will set you back $25. Mr Hadlee buys the saplings for $1 each. So he makes a nice profit. The only downside is that it takes 8 years for the tree to grow to a decent size.

After covering myself with dirt, it was time for lunch. The characters of the rest of the crew were pretty funny. The conversation ranged from “what was the score last night” to Quebec politics on separation. Very nice people though.

I had a great time out on the farm. After I finished I had a strange urge to drive a red pickup truck with country music blaring out the windows. What made the experience great was the check I picked up for $50 at the end of the day.

Scott Macleod

Some footnotes:

The tractor is not that rusty.

The red pickup is a Ford, not a Chevy.

No horses, no sleigh. Just a slightly rusty tractor and a wagon

And what’s wrong with country music.

Thanks for the story!

Richard Hadley (not Hadlee)