2009 & 2010
Trials and Tribulations of a Texas Christmas Tree Farmer
Archives
July 7, 2010
The first shearing of the year is done. We had and currently still are having plenty of rain which means plenty of growth on the trees to be cut. The trees look really great. Now hopefully we will get through the summer and early fall with no prolong droughts or worse yet hurricanes.
The bad news about all of the recent rains is that the trees are growing but the grass seems to be growing faster! Marge and I are spending a lot of time on the tractor mowing the grass so they do not shade the lower branches and hamper the formation of new buds.
A fawn or baby deer was seen in the area just down the hill from the haunted house. It was really curious on who I was and what I was doing there. It just looked and looked until I had to sneeze. (Hey, this is Texas and pollen is everywhere.) Then, off to another part of the field.
The is the third faun born in the Christmas tree fields in three years. I strongly suspect the other two are siblings. The more you think about it, our Christmas tree fields are perfect for a doe to have her young in. The fields are protected from feral hogs and to a more limited extent coyotes by an electric fence. In addition, we have plenty of grass for the mother to munch on and to make milk for the fawn. The fawn can also hide under any one of the multitude of Christmas trees when ever mom is out having dinner. In addition, Jude, petting dog, is getting old and really would prefer laying on the porch versus patrolling the fields and keeping critters at bay.
I give a talk on the hay ride about the snakes at Mill Hollow. One of the snakes we have and I talk about is a rat snake. Some people call it a pine snake since it can also climb pine trees. Others call it a chicken snake since it also loves baby chicks for lunch. It has a variety of names. Best of all it is non-poisonous even though it may scare the "living daylight" out of you in an encounter.
Well, we have a huge rat snake at the farm. We routinely see it when it patrols the Christmas tree fields and the area between the metal barn and the house.
This year, we found its shedded skin. The length of this snake is over seven feet long.
I am routinely asked why not kill this snake. Well, this snake eats mice, squirrels and other small critters. In addition, it appears to keep the other snakes out of its territory which covers all of the Christmas tree fields. Since many of these other snakes are poisonous like a rattle snake, copper head, water moccasin and coral, I am happy this very big rat snake calls Mill Hollow home and does not like intruders in its territory. Considering its size, I also suspect that the local hawk also leaves it alone.
Some day when I get bored to death, I will try to find out how big and how long can a rat snake live!! Maybe, we have a record breaking reptile at Mill Hollow.
April 10, 2010
I love spring time in Texas. We do have our infrequent periods of rains, cold winds from the North and maybe a snow flurry or two. But making up for this is the beautiful cool sunny crisp days in between. This time reminds me of the great summers in Wisconsin when I was growing up. It also reminds me how nice it is to be in warm Texas. This is really our spring and a lot better than snow, 20 below zero or a very cold wind which eventually turns to a very wet slushy spring in cold country.
This is also the time when our work load at the farm allows us to sit on our hill, have a leisurely warm cup of coffee and take in nature around us. It may be a few deer munching the new grass in Christmas tree field, the hawks looking for lunch among the Christmas trees or the fluttering little birds picking up seeds on the ground. If one takes the time to observe, it is amazing on what is going around you.
This is also the time of the year we plant the Christmas tree seedlings, put handles on the christmas trees (cut all branches approximately a foot off the ground) and stake any tree which is growing sideways. Unlike shearing, this is a relaxing non-pressure type of work. If I do not get it done today, there is always tomorrow, the day after and even next year.
The fallen swing tree has been delimbed and now to start working on cutting up the huge trunk. From the limbs alone, I have cut, split and stacked enough firewood to last probably three or four years. Reducing the remaining trunk to firewood is the next task. This does take some planning since it is above ground and delicately balanced by the stump and two limbs inbeded in the ground. For safety, I need to put the "hung up" trunk on the ground. This is easily said but harder to do. One bad cut by the chain saw can cause the chain saw blade to be wedged by the weight of this huge many ton tree trunk. Well, I only have one chain saw so this could be a major problem. As I learned from years of using the chain saw, plan the cut before you even start the saw and most importantly take your time and frequently re-evaluate the situation.
After the swing tree is done, I am planning on moving to the fallen oak from Hurricane Ike. I also estimate this firewood to cover our heating and log fire needs for another tree years above what the swing tree will do. Since it has been naturally dried for two years, this firewood will be what we have available for our customers.
Each year, we do have customers who not only take home a Christmas tree but also some oak firewood for the fireplace. Like hot chocolate and Christmas music, a oak log fire in the fireplace and the smell and feel of a real Christmas tree does set a memorable atmosphere especially when decorating a family real Christmas tree. I suspect pulling out the fake dusty tree from the attic for decorating even with a hot drink and music is a poor substitute for a real Christmas tree. I would even place getting and decorating a fake tree in the same task category of washing the windows, sweeping the floor or some other mundane house hold tasks. In my opinion, it does not signal the beginning of the Christmas season.
Jude, our petting dog, also likes this fresh cut oak. When we are sitting out on the porch and Jude becomes bored, he will go to the wood pile, sniff and find that perfect small knobby piece and pull it out. This piece becomes his chew toy until all of the knobs have been removed and the bark totally removed. I suspect this is why even the vet comments that his teeth and gums are in great shape for especially an old dog.
As you can see from the comments so far this year, it is very quiet. I have nothing I consider interesting to add to "Breaking News". This is of course assuming no one really cares that we have two flocks of crows fighting for control of Mill Hollow!! Besides a lot of noise, we still have not seen any evidence of which flock will provide us with our morning wake up noise. Considering how clever crows seem to be, I suspect they will find out that maybe getting together may be the best for both and also create more of a morning ruckus to wake up Mill Hollow.
February 10, 2010
Christmas tree farmers are by nature optimistic. We plant a crop which will not generate any income for anywhere from four to six years. In addition, the Christmas trees could die from variety of causes over these six years before they become a family's Christmas tree. The causes could be from too much rain, too little rain, bugs, fungi, disease, storms, hurricanes or the tree just can not make it. Oh yes, we are also unable to insure this crop with federal crop insurance. The one thing that Christmas trees having going for them is that the likelihood of Christmas being cancelled in four to six years is pretty slim if non-existent.
The Virginia pine, blue ice (Arizona cypress) and Leyland cypress Christmas tree seedlings have been planted where ever a tree was cut or died. With the current rains, they should do quite well until the hot dry summer days arrive. At that point, it is up to Mother Nature to decide if the needed summer showers will come. In the very unlikely situation they do not and the seedlings "bite the dust", we will just replant again and hope Mother Nature is more receptive to our water needs the following year. Irrigation is a option but is very expensive if one considers the hills. With our experience over 25 years of growing Christmas trees, irrigation is hard to justify especially since it would raise the cost of Christmas trees to our customers. Our goal is for families to take home a beautiful and affordable Christmas tree.
Our Christmas trees this last season were the best quality we have ever seen. It takes a very, very bad drought to affect our Christmas trees. This is because we have clay below a layer of sand near to the tree roots which will hold the winter/spring moisture and more crucially any summer showers. With the dry conditions in Texas this last year, our trees survived and even prospered with a few summer showers. The losses were pretty much limited to the seedlings and surprisingly were only sightly above what we seen in normal years.
The choose and cut period at our farm is what Marge and I refer to as "managed chaos". We have the best customers in the world and do this for them. However, we do have one or two customers which we would like to go somewhere else. Specifically, the one(s) who threw our relaxation bench on the wooden bridge into the creek and also the one(s) who on another day shut off our main water valve!!
The bench probably ended up in Lake Livingston with the subsequent rains. The lack of water with all the families at the farm was of a greater concern. The question was it the water well ($1,000 to fix and a couple of days without water), a broken water line (a day with out water and plenty of manual muddy work to fix) or a overloaded breaker (a walk down the steep hill, across the bridge and partially up the next hill to the water well). After going through the above possible problems, the lack of water was none of these causes. The problem was that the main water valve near our flag pole was soon discovered to be closed. Obviously, this just gave me a few more grey hairs! As many of you know, I am nearly all gray!!
We really appreciate the customers who do look out for what we have and "correct" any malicious behavior on the part of the few bent on destruction and total chaos! Thank you.
We experiment with various species of possible Christmas trees. Some work and others just do not make it. The current experimental Christmas tree, Japanese cedar, did reach the point of us finding out that we can grow it. It does take a longer time and also can not stand hard freezes. With a hard freeze, the tips change to a brown color but do not appear to be dead.
Before marketing the Japanese cedar as a Christmas tree, we needed to know if it will last in a warm house even with the lack of water for the four to six weeks some families have it up.
The Japanese cedar was our family Christmas tree at our house this year. It passed with flying colors especially since we let the water go dry for three of the six weeks it was up. Surprisingly, it did not dry up, turn brown or drop any needles. Just to make sure, I did light a match and placed the flame next to the needles. The Japanese cedar needles did not catch on fire.
My major concern about the Japanese cedar was allergies. I do get hay fever and especially allergic to the cedar pollen from cedar trees in the Texas Hill Country. In the winter when the wind blows from the west, I sneeze and suffer like I was in Austin, Texas! This Japanese cedar did not cause me to to have any discomfort!!!
The Japanese cedar is not a tree for everyone. It is a relatively light density tree. The weak branches do require light weight ornaments. This next selling season, we will make a few available to try. When our customers do this, we really appreciate feedback, good and bad, about our experimental Christmas trees.
Why do we experiment in growing different types of trees? With one species, you have the real risk that some bug, disease, or fungi will materialize and kill or deform all of the Christmas trees. If you grow only one Christmas tree specie and this happens, you are out of business!
I consider growing Christmas trees is being risky enough when you are reliant on Mother Nature and in an area where hurricanes do happen. Therefore, I like to have a variety of species growing on the farm where the lose of one specie does not cause us to close the gate.
We are always on the look out for other species which can survive the hot, humid and bug infested Texas!! We would love to grow the firs and balsams, but this past experiment resulted in a 100% failure in six months time. What the hot summer did not kill, the local insects had for lunch.
I am currently looking for other species. If you have any suggestions, do let me know.
November 11, 2009
I hate advertisers who insult ones intelligence. I am sure others feel this way . Today, I went to Home Depot and Lowes to buy items for the Christmas tree farm. When I went past the fake tree sections in both stores, I saw a General Electric pre-lighted fake tree with a large General Electric sign saying "just cut"! This tree was made in China and appeared to be polyvinylchloride plastic and metal. If it was cut, it had to have been on some factory assembly line.
If others are like me, I would not buy anything which works off of consumer's ignorance. Even though this use of the words "just cut" is probably legal since they applied for a trademark on this "name", being legal does not make it right. This especially the case since the words "just cut and fresh cut" has been used for decades at retail lots to show the real trees were recently cut and fresh.
For General Electric to do this type of marketing, I must judge their competence and especially their marketing expertise. This reminds me, I need to check to see if I own an General Electric stock and, if yes, maybe selling it.
If you want to get a reaction out of the store employees, just ask them how many days ago was this GE fake tree cut, where and how much water it will take up!!! All legitimate questions of a "just cut" real Christmas tree.
November 3, 2009
The October Outing, 2009, is history and will be remembered for beautiful weather, very energetic children and families enjoy the company of each other. Again, we are seeing more and more of the second generation coming up to the farm. They came up as children and are now coming up as adults and many times with a spouse and their own children in tow. This appears to confirm that memories of Mill Hollow are a very powerful part of life and passed on to upcoming generations. Gee, maybe we are doing something right!
We are getting the farm ready for the Choose and Cut period. This involves mainly checking out the equipment, setting up the school education area and repairing whatever was broken during the October Outing. This also includes getting our last "snail" and "e" mailing ready to go. As a reminder, do tell others about us. This is how we get new customers to replace the ones who move to parts unknown.
We did have our usual October problem with honey bees. They would magically appear with the first can of open soft drink and disappear at night. Apparently, they are getting that last bit of sugar for the cooler winter months. These bees did not sting and appeared to be very accommodating to everyone around them so long as they got their sugar fix. If anyone has a solution in keeping them away from the picnic area when sugar is all over the place, I would like to know!
Now for the bad news, we did have a vandalism problem. A bench was on the wooden bridge so one could sit and enjoy the wind going through the leaves and the babbling of the creek below. Someone(s) took this heavy bench and tossed it into the creek below. Well, the rains came and washed it down the creek. We suspect it is now floating in downstream in Lake Livingston.
As typical of vandalism, the culprit usually gets away with this. I also suspect he will be the first one to complain when prices are raised to offset the cost of this vandalism. Obviously, our customers have freedom to roam the trails and fields of the farm. We do ask our customers to watch and stop anyone who is thinking or doing anything of a destructive nature. Vandalism will cost your family both in entertainment and also in money whether at Mill Hollow or any here else.
October 7, 2009
The rains have come. The Christmas trees are looking the best we have seen possibly in the twenty five years of growing them. We have found from years of growing the Christmas trees, a "little" drought actually helps the trees. We will have more die in years of excessive rains than in years when the rain is limited during the summer months. The reason for this is that we have a water holding clay below the top soil sand. The trees when forced by the lack of rain will send its roots into this clay area. We have also found from soil analysis, this clay also contains a lot of minerals necessary for plant growth.
More importantly and this year was no exception, we get rain showers passing over the farm. With the southeast winds during summer, our rain is more dependent on what is occurring in the Port Arthur area and not the Houston or areas to the west of Mill Hollow.
We are in our final push getting the word out about our farm being ready for the annual October Outing which is the last two weekends in October. The mailing have already gone out. Next week, it is the email reminders. Remember, we do need RSVP's so we will have enough hot dogs with the fixin's for everyone.
I am still looking for a suitable tree swing to replace the one which has collapsed. Hopefully, this will be done before the October Outing. I have two problems. The most obvious is find a tree with big enough branches and with the right shape. The other is getting the swing chains out from under the fallen tree!!
What we have found at Mill Hollow is that it is a very unique place with abundant wildlife and insects calling it home. I try to share some of what we have seen either during our morning coffee or evening beer/wine with all of you one these pages. However, I am trying to keep this area more for the major events and not for the first sighting of a robin or a wandering deer.
Therefore, I have set up a Twitter page and also a Facebook page for what we see, hear and maybe an opinion or two on what is happening in the world. In order to find us on Twitter, just search for Mill Hollow Christmas Tree Farm. We will show up in the results. Alternative, our Twitter ID is "@MillHollowTexas". For Facebook, just search for me by name.
August 7, 2009
We just had a oak tree hit the dust! It was not because of the drought or the heat. It was just because it was old, very old! The tree was a Schumard red oak. Many of you will know it as the swing tree with four swings on it huge branches.
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The Tree Swing Tree - Before |
The Tree Swing Tree - After |
The tree fell during a typical Texas summer shower with rain of two inches. There did not appear to be any wind with this gully washer. The tree appeared to be healthy with a very excellent crop of leaves with none falling even during this hot dry weather. The tree split approximately 12 feet above the ground where two major branches separated from the trunk. As you can see from the breaking news picture, the trunk and even the two major branches are hollow. Based on what we have been told by locals, this is common for this tree. Like a pipe, being hollow does not necessarily weaken a tree. It can still bend with the wind as we seen during the recent Hurricane Ike. Interestingly, this tree did not loose any noticeable amount of branches during this hurricane.
This starting me thinking on how big and how old is this tree? The circumference or distance (roughly chest high) around this tree was sixteen feet and one inch. I check the Texas Forest Service for the Record Trees to see how it compares. Well, it was one inch bigger than the listed record Schumard red oak in Dallas. I then went to the internet and found these trees can live up to five hundred years with the US record have a circumference of 20 feet!!
Again, just how old was this tree. With the hollow core, I could not just count the rings in the trunk. Therefore, I needed to go back to my math! (This is the engineer in me.) From the circumference, I calculated the radius to be 30 3/4 inches. From counting the rings on smaller non-hollow branches and measuring the radius, I found that the growth rate was some where around 0.0652 to 0.0694 inches per year. Dividing the trunk radius with this growth rate, I found that the tree was somewhere between 443-471 years old and possibly older. (I had trouble counting the rings close to the bark.) This could have added on another five or more years.
I found this tree age to be amazing. When this tree was an acorn and sprouting, these ring calculations suggest the year was some where between 1538 and 1566 and possibly older. Too put this date in perspective, Columbus arrived in 1492. The Pilgrims did not land in Plymouth Rock until 1620!
I suspect this tree survived the lumbering period because it was already too big and too beautiful to cut. The hollow core also eliminated any quality lumber from this tree. I also suspect that any explorers, settlers, travelers and maybe even Sam Houston rested below the beautiful canopy of leaves provided by this tree. This is the last large specimen of a Schumard oak I have found in these woods. We do have other big trees but not this big, not a Schumard oak and not this beautiful.
We will be slowly dismantling this huge oak tree but do plan on leaving the trunk for posterity. History has recorded workers finding old coins from the Bonny and Clyde days in the hollow of another old tree. Well, we will also be checking this out since this oak tree was also near a vacant house when Bonny and Clyde were around here and rumored to have stayed in these vacant houses.
We will miss our swing tree. We also suspect that many of the critters which enjoyed the branches, relaxed in the shade or had a home in the hollow will also miss it. Time to go and find another swing tree so the up coming generations know what it is like to swing on a real swing tree.
It has also been brought to my attention that many do not know what my 1968 MGB roadster looks like. As Marge puts it, it takes grey hair to be able to recall this car as it traveled the roads and many times broke down on the road's shoulders. So, here is a picture.
It is not a powerful car with an engine horsepower of only 94 horse power. However, it is fun to drive and can really take the corners. The center of gravity on these cars are very low and somewhat like a go-kart. They are also fun if you are driving on the freeway and love to inspect the undercarriage of semi-truck trailers! Like motor cycles, many in big cars and pick up trucks do not even see you whether you are in front, along side or even behind!
June 25, 2009
The first Christmas tree shearing of the year has been completed. The Christmas trees look great and should not be adversely affected by the current very high temperatures and Texas wide drought. This drought should not affect the growing or even the quality of Christmas trees at Mill Hollow. We have a underlying layer of clay which holds moisture for the trees to grow even if it does not rain for weeks or even for months. The grass may die but the trees historically have not had a problems surviving and flourishing.
We have also seen historically that the rains will come!! A rain shortage in East Texas can be made up in one gully washer rain storm.
As you may read below, we had problems with pigs getting into the Christmas tree field. Well, we have not seen them in the field since the electric fence has been repaired. More interestingly, they have even moved out of the adjacent forests.
With this poor economy, I do know that many in the area are on the look out for pigs and consequently very low fat and delicious pork chops and bacon for the table. I am not sure what has caused the pigs to move on but do think hunting is only one of the reasons.
I believe we are seeing Mother Nature at work. This spring, we had an over abundance of rabbits. I suspect they have found out that eating fresh grass in the Christmas tree field is more appealing than trying to find vegetation in the pine straw covered adjacent forests. With the cover of Christmas trees, they scoot from tree to tree and come out from under just to eat the adjacent grass. We do have a family of hawks living in the adjacent tall pine trees which look at these rabbits as being a nice lunch.
In addition, we now have a pack of coyotes routinely roaming outside and probably even in side the Christmas tree field in the evenings and mornings. For coyotes, rabbits are a delicacy!
The arrival of the coyote pack appears to coincide with the departure of the feral hogs from the area. These pigs are smart. The probably have figured out that these wondering "dogs" love rabbit but are too small to feast on a grown pig. However, they probably will not pass up on a delicious piglet! Consequently, time to move on. Survival of the species is at stake.
We continually find it very interesting how Mill Hollow fits into the scheme of Mother nature as being a major food source for the local animals. This year, we again have seen a new fawn and its mother eating grass in the Christmas tree field. We suspect the doe was the one who gave birth to the fawn last year in the electric fenced horse pen. As I mentioned, we are seeing a lot of rabbits. Right now, we are also seeing an influx of squirrels and not sure why. Possible theory is that the hawks and vultures have reduced the snake population. Snakes and especially the tree climbing rat snake will feed on squirrels. Again, these hawks will have another food source, squirrels, to offset any decline in the rabbit population with the coyotes. What will we see next?
Mill Hollow Breaking News June 22, 2009 Update
Another fawn has been seen in the vicinity of Rebal's horse pen and believed to be a sibling to the fawn born last year.
May 15, 2009
We have not uploaded these pages to our server since last winter since it is very slow. This is not unusual since we use a telephone dial-up connection and not high speed internet. In past recessions, we seen this slow down in our dial-up connection also happen. When times get tough and house hold budgets get cut, high speed internet goes! For some, you revert back to the tried and true telephone connection and save $20 per month.
The major event at the farm is that the pigs are getting into the Christmas tree fields. We keep pigs out of the fields through the use of a snoot high electric fence. It is solar powered with a battery back up for the night. Last year, we had one pig which would hold up the electric wire with his snoot and scoot under. Apparently, the hair on the snoot would allow him to do this with minimal shock. I resorted to random fire crackers to keep him on his side of the fence.
A few weeks ago, we started getting more pigs coming into the field through the electric fence. I checked out the electric fence voltage and it was working. The wires were not touching any vegetation and being grounded out. I then started to wonder if the saying "Monkey see, Monkey do" might apply. This one pig last year has figured out how to get past the electric fence and has shared it with his brothers, sisters, cousins and aunts and uncles!
The fire crackers came out and the pig rifle was cleaned. I started taking a nightly walk at dusk around the farm. Well, I did scare the living day lights out of a few pigs but they were all able to run away. I am a good shot. However, these pigs come out only when it is dark, they are black and can really move! Under these conditions, a dead pig probably means it died of a heart attack from the sound of my rifle shot.
Well, the pigs still came. Being an engineer, I started wondering if I was not missing something. Back to the solar charger, I noticed the frequency of the spark was higher when the sun was shining and lower when the sun was setting. This suggested something was wrong since the battery should be smoothing these sparks through out the day and night. Well, I soon found out that the sealed battery would not hold a charge for more than a hour. This meant that the electric fence worked perfectly during the day and evening when the pigs were not around. At late night and early morning when the pigs are roaming, the electric fence was nothing more than a snoot high wire!
I replaced the solar charger with one working off of electricity. In the three nights since, the pigs have come to the fence but did not cross. Hopefully, this pig problem is history.
I am sure many wonder what I do when times are quiet and the pigs keep to the woods. Well, I finally have my 1968 MGB convertible running in nearly new condition. It is not a frame up reconstruction. All I have done is over the years replaced anything that did not work! This way, I have fun of tooling around the neighborhood and avoid the frustration of snapped bolts. The next project is to build a building for the MGB at the farm so I can go tooling around those country roads.
January 25, 2009
The 2008 selling season is now history. It did confirm a suspicion we have been harboring for the many years of being in the business. It has to do with Murphy's law. For those of you in the non-technical area, Murphy's law is that the unexpected will happen at the most inopportune time. Oh yes, there are many variations of this law which more or less say the same thing. For Mill Hollow, the unexpected will occur when we have families up at the farm.
As some of our customers know, we lost our water well on the third weekend of operation. The PVC pipe a couple of feet above the well pump split. This happened late on the preceding Friday of our third selling weekend or December 13 and 14. As you all know, the service repair industry does not work weekends. (When was the last time you were able to get your car fixed on a Saturday or Sunday?) Christmas tree farms must be open on weekends! The earliest we could get the well pump and piping pulled was the following Monday. The well and split pipe is approximately 150 to 200 feet below ground and requires a vertical wench truck to lift it up and out. Repairs were made and the well placed back into service. The real bad news occurred two weeks later, the 15 year old well pump died! Apparently, the split pipe caused it to continually pump. The additional heat generated is believed to have eventually weakened the motor windings and caused them to short out. Again, it happened in the "everyone is off period " between Christmas Day and New Years. We again had the pump pulled and a new pump installed.
We did have clean food serving items and a limited amount of clean well water in our pressure tank for the first day of this third selling weekend. We were able to provide the free hot dogs on Saturday, December 13,. However, we did not have any water to clean the food utensils. Consequently on Sunday, December 14, we did not have free hot dogs with the fixin's available for our customers. The safety of our food is more important to us than having free food available to our customers. We did not want to chance the possibility of your family getting sick. We did bring in clean water for hand washing on both days but were unable to clean the port-a-potties and the sales office restroom.
We did get a couple of raised eyebrows but hope you all understood. We will provide you with the best experience possible. However, we can not control the unexpected or have the leverage to force someone too work weekends!
This loss of the well did point up that in our nearly 25 years, we have experienced the uncontrolled or unexpected mainly during the times we have customers at the farm! For example, we have seen the following occur during our October Outing or Choose and Cut days over the last 25 years.
1. We had both port-a-potties floors break the same day.
2. We had the Gully Washer of 1994 (This was the storm which flooded all roads from Houston) start over our farm as the last customers were leaving our October Outing. If they would have dilly-dally a few minutes more, we would have had them overnight!
3. We had a forest fire move towards the farm during our first big weekend after Thanksgiving. The local fire department was fighting the fire and keeping us informed if we needed to evacuate all of our customers.
4. We lost electricity on our biggest selling weekend when a substation went down. No cleaning or use of the cash register was possible.
5. We had rain last year every weekend . To make matters worse, we had a couple of "cowboy" pickup trucks who spun their way up the hill the first rainy day, created ruts which caught the rain water and made it a muddy mess for everyone else that day and on the following weekends!
6. We had our insulated water pipes freeze on one very cold selling day and did not have water for several hours that morning.
7. We had a tornado pass over the farm the evening of an October Outing day and damaged buildings in the area but for reasons unknown left us untouched.
8. Denny got the flue on a big weekend and this is after getting the flue shot!
Believe it or not, we do not have these type of events during the non-selling season. This is why I consider Murphy's law to be involved. However, we do consider these events to be learning lessons. If something unexpected happens, we go with back up plans and hope our customers understand. We, like you, do not like the inconvenience of something different but have learned to "go with the flow" and hope you our customers understand.
The one event we are still waiting for is a choose and cut snow storm. Obviously, this would prevent customers from coming but oh would it be so nice to see everything covered in white! Maybe, I would even take my skis out of the barn and make a run down one of the hills before retiring back to the house and a warm fire with hot spiced wine.
Mill Hollow Breaking News January 25, 2009
The fawn which was born in Rebal's horse pen behind the metal barn last year and her mother survived the hunting season and are making routine forays into our Christmas tree fields in the early morning hours to feed and browse.
November 4, 2008
The annual October Outing has been completed with perfect weather on both of the weekends. We were able to clean up most of the debris and do the needed repairs from Hurricane Ike. However a few days before the first weekend of October Outing, we did find a support beam on the tree house was cracked but not broke. With time running out, we were forced to put up "Closed for Repairs" sign on the tree house. As many of our customers already know, this tree house is very popular and especially with girls.
We have completed the tree house repairs and it will be opened for our Choose and Cut. The repairs involved putting in additional supports of the cracked beam, a new adjacent support beam and, just to make sure, a vertical ground post to further support the tree house.
Why did this beam crack when it went through Hurricane Rita with no problems? In closer inspection, the oak tree grew over one end of this support beam . This makes for a very strong connection but also opens up the possibility that something must give if the tree house moves in one direction and the supporting tree branches in an other direction. The tree house was designed to "float" and not to be attached to the tree so high winds would cause the tree house platform to move independently of the supporting branches. Obviously, the tree house did not float as designed and the beam was cracked.
One of these days, I would like to rebuild the tree house into a slightly different structure. Currently, it is one level. I believe an internal ladder to a second level or "look out" would further create a setting of what a tree house should be.
When will this be done? It is on the list but the list is very, very long! I am also a realist in that you should worry if you have already completed everything on your "to do" list. If your list is completed, you are either not dreaming enough on other things to do or to focused on the list and not enjoying the other pleasures of life. As some would say, Mill Hollow is a passion which is a level or two above being a business!
Mill Hollow Annual Invitational Down Hill Tire Rolling Contest was held the first weekend of the October Outing. A new winner was crowned this year. Jarred Hughes was the winner of this Invitational tire roll with an amazing distance on his second roll. This was the first year for Jared to compete. Jared and his brother have been coming to Mill Hollow since they were "knee high" to the scarecrow. Obviously, they have practiced a lot and knew the peculiarities of the tire rolling course. Of course, I suspect Jared is also very lucky! Obviously, we suspect Jarred will defend his title next year!
Breaking news: The unprecedented three year winner of this tire roll contest, Alice, failed to make it a four year record. Alice had the perfect roll to do it but hit the "orange ball" marking the winning roll of Justin, her fiancee. Instead of bouncing off to the side and being the winning roll, it hit the orange ball straight on and bounced backwards and was left as another losing tire roll. Too bad!
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