Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Countryside Christmas Tree Hunt

When we went to get our Christmas tree last month, we were out of luck (which was in keeping with how last month went for us!). We went to the place that we always go to pick out a freshly cut tree, but they were completely out of pre-cut Frasier firs. They'd pretty much sold out the previous weekend--the weekend after Thanksgiving--which is when we normally get our tree, but we were in Florida that weekend. When we saw the slim pickings, we ventured out into the field of uncut trees to see if we could find one. We didn't. But the views were nice!

I love the contrast of (Christmas) trees and bales of hay. Country living has some nice perks and Iowa is more beautiful than the rest of America realizes.





Watch out for the cute little baby trees!

There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about Christmas tree farms that I love. It feels like stepping back in time.



 

There's a fun little train there that the boys (especially Sam) like riding on each year. It's old and rickety but it goes fast and they painted it a nice festive red this year. Unfortunately, it stopped working just before the boys were going to ride it (of course). They didn't really mind, though. They'd been on plenty of rides in Florida the week before. They were content to sit for some photos.




It was a nice outing but a fruitless one as far as getting a tree went. Peter found a good tree later that day at Lowe's, a nice big one that turned out to be our tallest tree yet.

The finished product, finally!


It all turned out fine, but we learned our lesson. We may not go away for Thanksgiving this year just so that we can get our tree earlier!