Christmas Tree Farm 1

Christmas time means Christmas trees… a happy Christmas tree story next. So I’m sitting in the locker room after a hockey game talking with my defense partner, Bob Ingraham, and he tells me he grew up in the Boston area working on his family’s farm…make that Christmas tree farm and I thought what better Christmas story could there be?

Bob had his Mom (Olive )and Dad (Bill) call me up and we chatted about their farm. Bill had a friend who was growing trees and then found some available land: “We bought the land which was 20 acres, I had 4 boys at the time and they and I started to clear the hardwood off it and cut it down and sell the chord wood for the money to have all the land stumped and pretty soon we had an acre and a half of field. We planted the first Christmas trees in there and proceeded to do 10 more as the years went by. It was a pretty neat arrangement because the boys were there as a captive work force and we’d have time together and they’d have their teammates from baseball and hockey and football come and help. So it was more fun than work from my perspective anyway.”

And one of those sons has his jersey retired and hanging in the rafters of Qwest Arena. Maybe the best hockey player in the history of the Steelheads…Cal Ingraham. So growing up on a farm where the kids pitch in even works on a Christmas tree farm. Tomorrow we’ll hear from Mom Olive about a unique way they market the trees.