Trees of Christmas Past

0:00 When you have a U cut Christmas tree firm and you see the joy that people and families are having and it becomes a tradition in their family to come up and we've watched little babies grow up. Bill he used to tell people, if. You don't know anyone when you get here, you'll know a whole large family when you leave. That's the way that it became. People would get to know each other and friendships developed standing around that fire. I definitely remember the fire pit was huge. That was like central to the experience site. Hi Caitlin, Hi Cassie, Hi creepy people. Hey, this is PNW Haunts and Homicides where we chat about true crime, the paranormal, and all things spooky in the Pacific Northwest the p and W.

0:58 If you're nice, stick and. We also do a tarot reading at the end of every episode for a little deeper insight into our topic. And sometimes our topic isn't even creepy or scary at all. Sometimes it's just cool in specific NORTHWESTI So yeah, Holiday and Happen tis this season and also sorry if you do not celebrate Christmas. This is a Christmas heavy episode, but it's kind of for everyone too. It's not Yeah, you can still listen to it. It's not specific. We're not just like telling the story of Santa Claus or whatever. It's actually pretty good. So even if you don't care about Christmas, if you don't celebrate, it's still a pretty good episode. I think. Well, and here's the thing is, Santa is a secular figure, so even if you are not celebrating Christmas in the maybe traditional religious sense, I feel like Christmas in terms.

1:55 Of Santa people. Yeah, to all of us, Okay, that is true. If you want him, you got him. You got him. He'll be there. He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows something. Oh no, which is a series of spicy books I'm currently reading. Anyway, let's move along because we're going to do some Patreon shout outs that I'm not sure if we've actually done yet or not. So we're just going to either do them anew or do them again and you're going to deal with it, all right. First off, we have Brandy and Taylan at the Creepy People Tier. Hello, Hello Brandy, Hello Taylan. And you guys might have heard of Taylor before. She is our video edter Social media goddess keeps us in line sort of. She's just becoming our manager. I think you know, she start booking us shows any day now, Taylan get to Yeah, we'll just do what you tell us. We'll do anything you say.

2:58 I agree. And we have a new member, Sam, not that new. Also, we're a little bit concerned. Okay. We try to stay really on top of these things. But since you've been with us for long enough for any one of us to have produced offspring, we want to make sure that you got your welcome Patreon card. The police are coming to arrest us because we just I know, we forget we might not have sent a card. Oh my goodness, Wow, coming in. Hot, they are coming in real hot. So Sam, please be sure to let us know if for some reason that slipped under the radar.

3:44 Yeah, we try, but sometimes if you join as a free person and then you join like for real, it doesn't email us. So we have to try to like really check and figure it out. And sometimes it's just hard. So, yes, we've missed anything for you Patreon member, like just bug us message us. You can private message us on Patreon. Yeah, if we missed a shout out if we missed your welcome card. If you just want to say hey, if you have a topic suggestion. Uh moving, moving quickly along from the Patreon irritations, we have an update from Clint. Oh my gosh. After we did the AI art for Clint's story in the Last Creepy People chronicles, because Clint saw a really creepy possible cryptid where nobody sure, but we put his description into AI and came up with this crazy Well, AI came up with this a crazy image of what this thing might have looked like, and so we sent it to Clinton was like, Clint, is this it? And then Clint sent us back a drawing and a message that all I want to text Caitlin the drawing really quickly, and then Clint's message, Oh, I'm so excited. So Clint says, that's close to what I saw, and it says, sorry, I'm not as good artist as you. You mean as AI.

5:09 We didn't, Yeah, we didn't, and you're a great artist. Clint. I think this is this is answering a lot of questions for us. So he says, somewhere between my memory and writing things, I left out some details. Like like the dicks on its head. Hey, Clint is a fabulous artist. Okay, No, he's are just saying those are dicks on top of his head. They do look like many beans, but he does describe what they are. So he says, those are like tarantula legs coming out of the top of his head, which was pretty close to the to the drawing, but like tranchil legs, I'm like thick and hairy like. So his hair was shorter like tarantula hair and not we were kind I was thinking like long long emo bangs. So yeah, the drawing like is pretty damn close.

6:07 It really is crazy. It's a startling likeness. Yeah, he drew him from the side though, so it looks like maybe he was seeing more of a side angle, which explains why we like the other eye you couldn't see. So he does maybe have two eyes, but we don't know because we can't see the second one. Hard to say. Maybe he is a cyclopes, yeah, could be gosh, but it is a very strange, just like circle body on top of the legs. It's it's so weird, and it does have arms. It has separate arms that are separate from the tarantula arms coming out of the head. So it has okay, two tarantula arm legs coming out of its head, and then two regular arms and two regular feet, well as regular as can be.

6:49 You know, it's all relative, I suppose. Oh, and he wrote it has short, dark brown hair, and then the trantle legs are lighter brown. Yes, I was noticing that I. Didn't see the words on there originally. Okay, that's so cool. I'm glad that AI kind of got kind of got the gist of what you were trying to describe it. That's awesome. I feel like it really captured it. I'm let's move on to our topic for the day. And I realized that I'm about to talk about trees again. Oh boy, because I am a tree lover, a tree hugging hippie from Portland, Oregon.

7:34 Literally like tes yeah, you guys, I hope, literally a tree hugger. I like to feel their energy, their vibes. We've talked about it. I know, I love it for you. So when I came across this article called the Second Life of an Abandoned tree Field, I got very intrigued. And the tagline is can a Christmas tree field abandoned for years become a plentiful source of tree and boughs. Mark Rolfs think so and is making that a reality. So we're talking about Christmas trees today. I love it, so I said. It was like, you know, a little Christmas heavy, but it's just about the trees. So like trees are forever about it, Like yeah, even though well I'll get I'll get to my opinions. But at the end about the Christmas trees. Uh oh no, no, no, it's not bad.

8:25 I'm like, am I about to be canceled for my Christmas tree? No? All, it's sweet, It's sweet, okay, Okay. In twenty seventeen, Mark Rolf's decided to save what they call old fern flat. He did not want the overgrown and unshaped mess of forgotten trees to go to waste, so they were sold as natural noble furs at their La Christmas Tree lot called Santa and Sons. Noble furs are expensive. Yeah, right, that's why he's like looking around this field of It's one of the pictures I have for you of the field of like the mess that they were looking at here.

9:08 Okay, yeah, we had lengthy conversations about varietals of trees when we went to go get ours, because Chris's parents specifically like a different one than what we went with, which was the Noble Fur. And it's not because it's. A noble fur, like I am not such a brand tour that I needed to be like, oh I want the most expensive. No, it's just we we kind of needed a smallish tree, and all of the kind of smaller ones were noble fur. It seemed like, so yeah, that's how that happened.

9:50 I'll give you some fun facts about noble fur trees. Actually, okay, the tree lot where they sell these Christmas. These chrees Christmas Church. The tree lot Santa and Sons where they sell these Christmas trees is in LA and they grow, Yeah, the trees in Oregon. And that's because noble furs are native to Oregon and they only grow in the Pacific Northwest. Oh well, maybe that explains my preference. The noble fur trees. A love of frosty winter and elevations above four thousand feet. Oh that's pretty dang elevated. If you ask me, it sure is. And the Noble Fur out sells all other varieties in the Western United States, so you're not the only one everyone loves a noble.

10:36 Fur, makes sense, I will say, I don't know if it's specific to the noble fur, but they also are harboring erected fugitives, criminals that have snuck into my home. Oh well, see, you took their home into your home, so it's basically your fault. I know. I just every year I think to myself, it'll be fine because they run it through the shaker machine. Yeah, you know, and they like wind it up. Have you seen I Actually this is funny. I have a video of a spider web and a spider in the middle of it in a windstorm, and it's just like, oh my god doing this and it is not budging. Dude, it's not budging. I should I should add that, put that video somewhere.

11:31 Yeah, you're yeah, you might have to make that part of the social media for this episode. Yeah, you guys can't see my hand movements because we're not doing video for this one. But man, I'm just going back and forth in front of the candy. Yeah. So, anyway about the Christmas trees. Santa Incens was founded by Mark and his wife Patricia in nineteen eighty three, and I have a really cute picture of Mark with a Christmas tree just do too, Adores. He kind of looks like Santa. I'm not gonna lie. He could be as a farmer. Well, it's Santa and sons. He's Santa's son, you guys, is an an. It looks like such a perfect Christmas tree standing with.

12:18 Oh no, that is just gorgeous. I would have had to have like cut that tree in half to get it into my place. Yeah, that looks like one of the more shaped, like purposefully shaped, maintained taking care of from birth and not just left to overgrow trees. But it turns out that a lot of people love the rustic and unkempt style. They're usually with larger branches and they have more space in between them for like larger ornaments and stuff. Yeah, so the really tall trees like the picture I sent you first, they use just the tips of the trees, so they use those to sell for Christmas trees. They like basically cut off the tips of the trees and then all the boughs down underneath. They took them off to make wreaths and what are they waths and garlands.

13:11 Garlands. Yeah, so they weren't wasting anything and They also used the clippings for regrowing purposes as well. Oh there's a really cute video on one of the articles on their website of Mark planting a little tree a little seedling. It's so cute. It's like cool to just see. I love it. Literally, it's just like digging my hand, not using a machine and planting the little seedlings. I mean, I'm sure you've seen these Christmas trees before, but they have an Instagram post of someone posted one of their trees that they decorated, so you can kind of see like all the space that's in between the bigger branches. It's not very it's not perfectly shaped.

14:00 Yeah, ours is definitely not perfectly shaped. Actually had to shape it yourself. Yes, no, quite literally, and I and only shaping it so that it can fit in our space, not to like make it like a perfect triangle or anything. Yeah. We had to saw some of the lower branches off this morning so that it would sit in the tree stand correctly, because like tree branches. Yeah, no, I'm serious. It was such a Oh I think that's why I needed to try to nap. Oh. Yeah, look at that. It's like all the way up to their ceilings.

14:43 I know it is big, but I do like kind of the space in between and like the more natural look. I like both. I like it always, I like it allways. Yeah, I just like a good tree. So I did come across another article and it's called the Third Life of an Abandoned tree field. So the first one was called the second life, and then I found one called the third life, and I was like, the fuck happened? And then wow, I was like, oh yeah. So in September twenty twenty, forest fires ripped through most of Oregon in the West coast. Yeah, they sure did, including areas of Marx Farm. They lost a lot of the natural fur field. And this was after they had harvested Let's see, they started in twenty seventeen. This was twenty twenty, so they had harvested a lot of it already and sold it. But there was still some left and that, you know, a lot of that they lost.

15:38 And they also, yeah, they lost a field of thousands of freshly planted seedlings. No, yeah, they were just like, oh my god, like hundreds of man hours planting like they do these by they do the planting by hand. They don't use machines. Yea, and that was just completely ill, completely lost. That is so heartbreaking. It's devastating. And I can't remember which fire this was. There's been a few, like really really devastating fire. Do you remember what the twenty twenty There could have been multiple too. Yeah. I don't recall it being like given a specific name or anything, but I remember having like at that point, that's when I was still I was living in Oregon City, and I remember I had to leave work one day and I was working probably about thirty During COVID, you could get back and forth between the West Side and Oregon City in less than thirty minutes, but I was like, you know, it was thirty forty minute drive normally. So I was very panicky because I had to leave work in the middle of the day because as we were in the red zone.

17:03 Ah, the fire was cz like as the crow flies. It was only about a mile and a half away from where we were living, and I was like, I gotta go get my dogs. I got to go get like the stuff that I can't replace, and I went and stayed with a friend somewhere else because I just thismog like, because I mean, it's not smog it's it's smoke, but it was so thick. Yeah, I saw pictures of that. I have pictures of it, like rolling in and it looks like doomsday. It does. It looks like you're on Mars. And I remember I was having. A lot of issues because for I mean, I have asthma, so for people with respiratory issues also during a literal respiratory disease pandemic.

17:56 Yes, And they were like, I was so freaked out. I was so didn't go outside. And they're like, extra, don't go outside though, like, don't even go in your backyard. And I'm like, but my dog has to want peace. She's gonna like die. And they were like, going outside and breathing for what like five minutes is like smoking twenty million packets of cigarettes. Not that exaggerated, but I mean I'm crazy. Yeah, the smoke was. Really really thick in some areas where it was very very. Dangerous, like the air quality. People who you know, eat their head, respiratory issues, children, you know, seniors really having a lot of issues, like it was not safe to be outside.

18:38 It was scary. And I just did a quick google and it says the twenty twenty Oregon wildfire season was the most destructive on the record in the state. Yeah, twenty twenty was. I've said it once twice. I don't even know how many times. Twenty twenty was very specifically the longest decade ever, and I'm talking about. Us in Oregon too, like these fires, protests, like COVID, all of it. Yeah, it was. It was a lot. I just felt like every single day it felt like there was kind of a new crisis.

19:21 Yeah. I also went through a breakup at Oh God in twenty twenty two, so it was just like every leason, my life is on fire, and it turns out so is the planet. So what are you gonna do? At one point, wasn't there something about like killer like giant killer bees or killer bees, yellow jackets or something, and everyone was just like, oh, all right. Well, and then I think I think it was. The next summer and fall that Australia it might have still been in twenty twenty. I can't remember the precise dates. But Australia had devastating wildfires too.

20:05 Have they lost the kangaroo. And koalas. I mean, and just like the devastation to you know, their topography, like it's not good. So after the devastation of all of this loss from the fire, really the only option to them was just to start over. So they cleared the fields of burnt timber and prep the soil for replanting. More hundreds of man hours spent replanting like so thousands and thousands of seedlings. Well and whenever. Like a Christmas tree farm that is almost always like a family run business. It's like, it's so devastating to think about that type of It's like, I don't know, it's it's not good when other bigger companies have a loss, maybe, but like more in economic terms, I just feel like it's so personal to them, you know. It's like I planted these trees.

21:15 Yes, And I'm going to read it literally with their hands, with their feet, with their heart. I'm going to read a quote from the end of this article. It says, most people think our work is done once Christmas is over, but it's just the beginning of a different type of work. With our crew in the fields every week. It really is a year round job for us. Yeah, I mean you gotta keep planting trees, yes, gotta. Keep care all year absolutely, And it really was like reading this kind of was tugging at my heart strings about the trees because I was feeling like, it's so mean to just kill a tree and like keep its dead body in your house for a few weeks and then throw it out, Like I feeling like monster, right, But then when you think about these people who have these huge farms of trees, and they put all this love and time and energy into growing this tree for you so that you can have it in your home.

22:20 It can light up your home and bring joy for you for a couple of weeks and then it's you know, recycled, Please recycle the tree. But it just made it feel a lot more special to me and not so just like gruesome, like oh my god, just putting a tree to toss it. It really is a lot more special. And then these people, this is their livelihood, their farmers. Yeah, okay, so do you want to hear something really really cool about me that I don't know? I might have. I might have mentioned this on the podcast before, but I don't know. Honestly, you might know. Okay, I'm dying to know because I don't know if I know. Okay, I know, but I don't know if you know what I know that you think that. I know, Okay, that didn't make any sense.

23:06 Damn. It got real meta. So when I was a kid, I used to quote unquote work on my u G my grandparents Christmas tree farm. Yes, so I would. I wouldn't. I was really little, so I was like, you know, serving hot cocoa, Like hell yeah. I would take people on a little animal tours. I don't know if like someone told me to do that, or if I just was like, I'm gonna go take people on animal tours. And I would go around to like all little stalls with the I don't know, goats. There was EMUs, there was peacocks. I'm sure there was like chickens and pigs and ducks and shit. So I'd go around and like take people to tour the animals or something.

23:51 I like a little tiny girl boss entrepreneur. You're like starting a whole separate side venture. I try. I don't know. I just I think I really liked an off. I love animals. I'm like, hey, let's go yeah, animals, I think, or maybe maybe someone suggested it to me, maybe my grandma told me to go and do it. I it was I was pretty young, so I don't. My memories are kind of foggy about it, and I didn't really think about like how special this kind of was until recently, and I'm like, man, that was pretty damn magical that I got to spend a good chunk of my childhood at a Christmas tree farm. Seriously, it feels like a Hallmark movie. It does. And then even in the off season, like we would be there all the time, and it was just across the street from their house, so we would just go across the street and go wander around through the trees and there was back trails and I've I remember me and my aunts and cousins would go walking around back there in the trees and we found a deer head or was like I don't know if it was an elk or a deer, but I had really big horns and it was on a stump, and I just I thought that was the creepiest thing. And I'm like, who put this there? It was so mysterious to me?

25:08 Is this like I don't know what. I don't think I was thinking like Satanic rituals at that point, but like, yeah, something along those lines was cooking in my brain, like this is spooky and like, yeah, cool. But it's like that horror movie that they made with Winnie the Pooh. You're like, oh my. God, they made a horror movie with Whinnie the Pooh. Yes, yeah, this is like old. I don't know when this came out, but it's like probably I'm gonna say from my memory, I think it came out in like the last five years. But yeah, I go, we need to look that up. Yeah, you're gonna have to look it up because maybe that's what happened.

25:49 But so I think we went back all scared to the adults or something and we're like, well, we found this head on the stump in the woods. And then they were like, well, yeah, you you, when you kill a deer or like an elk or whatever, you want to have the antlers and the skull for a trophy, so you leave it out so the bugs can eat all this the flesh off of it. Oh. So it was like totally a normal thing. Nothing creepy, nothing, no voodoo. You know. Still it sounds really creepy to me. Yeah, I mean it is, but I think creepy cool. Yeah. That's probably where I get a lot of my fascination with like bones and dead animals and yeah, keeping them around.

26:31 This is like your origin story kind of. We're learning so much about you combining Christmas in creepy. It's my favorite thing, my two favorite holidays. Hello, please enter Tim Burton, sir. So, I'm actually going to talk to my grandma and my dad about the Christmas Tree Farm. And I have a couple of questions for them because since I don't really remember a ton, so I want to know what they know, like if they have any spookey stories about the place or just an any fun things in general about working on Christmas Tree Farm, because they remember it so much better than I do. Yeah, I have to imagine.

27:12 I have a piece of male you do from the po box. Yeah, oh okay, we open it. Yeah, I don't know what it is, but I do know who it's from. Who's it from? It's from Sam, Sam, the one we were just talking about. Nope, difference. Then, oh my gosh, this is so cute. Okay, So this is like a little kind of Christmas card and it says on the back it's got the writing to explain, which is like all of my family does that. I feel like a lot of people do that.

27:54 Oh, like what the picture is? Yes, a year and who it is? Sam at or in Vortex before two thousand and eight. Oh, I love had the vourtext. Dude, that is so cool. You have to send me a picture of that close up? Yeah? I would. I love that. Isn't that fun? Thank you for sending that, Sam. I love that. We got a Christmas card y'all. Were you gonna do a Christmas one? Yeah? Okay, so spoilers for everyone who might hear this. This is so fucking weird because it's not a Christmas tree farm, but my next episode has to do with Christmas trees. Whoa that is weird? Yeah, spooky.

28:43 We had no idea what we were going to talk about. No, because I think at one point you may have mentioned, just like in passing that like your family like had a Christmas tree farm. But I don't think I knew that, like you ever worked out there any I don't think I knew any of that. Yeah, and we never really coordinate on our topics. You know, we don't have to because we talk about different things and were likely praize each other most of them. Yeah, most of the time. You'll still be surprised. That's so cool. I know, weird, right, Wow, Okay, I have questions for you. Okay, date your name, date of birth.

29:24 No, I'm just kidding. This is my grandma Sandy, and. I love her very much. Oh, I love you too. So I have some questions for you. Need to clarify some things for the people. Because I was very young. So is it true that I used to work on a Christmas tree farm? Yes? It is. You did a great job. Oh, thank you. How old was I do you remember? I believe you were when you started up there helping us? You were eight? Eight? Wow. I have memories of like surveying people hot chocolate, yes, and working in the little like gift shop.

30:07 Yes. And there's ornaments everywhere, and just Christmas merch and things that you made, right, you made wreaths. And stuff we made. I made wreaths. We also had Santa Claus. Yes, Santa. You helped us with decorating four trees each year. We picked the ugliest trees that we could find so that we could prove to people that every tree can be beautiful at Christmas time. Really, I don't remember that at all. That was probably your favorite thing to do, Oh, decorate the trees. Why don't I remember that you were young, because now I look back and I'm like, man, that was so magical.

30:52 I also remember like taking people on tours to go see all the animals. Right, we had a little pet and my sons and I would go to the auction and again we'd pick out the ones that looked homeless, that nobody else want, my God, and we brought them up. And there were so many people we averaged between three thousand and thirty five hundred people a year wow at the tree farm during those weeks. That's so cool. And a lot of people that grew up here in the city had never been around a lot of these animals, so for them it was it was fun. The kids enjoyed it. We had everything from chickens, ducks, rabbits, to EMUs, sheep, goats, calves.

31:47 When it came time to bottle feeding the little ones, we lent the children help us. Oh did I ever do that? Yes? Oh? Yes. We had one calf that you really fell in love with, and you always went a bottlefeed, whether it was time or not. Like now she's hungry, and I had to explain. To you that we couldn't give hot chocolate to the. Caf Oh why not. No, we had Hey writes. We had a what started out as a just a little fire pit to burn things in as we were cleaning up when we first started, and each year we would spread the rocks out and make it larger because there were so many people that started coming up and by the time we got done, mikel how big would you say?

32:43 That firepit was big? Oh? Yeah, my dad's here too. Hell his name is Mike. I'm Families would come to you worked at one of the sliding windows in the front. Yeah, I remember that. And they would come for their hot chocolate or their coffee, and then we had other things that I loved, the cookies, the hot dogs, and people would give them It's go and stand around the fire. And the owner, I guess you could say, was my father in law Bill. He used to tell people, if you don't know anyone when you get here, you'll know a whole large family when you leave.

33:27 That's the way that it became. People would get to know each other and friendships developed standing around that fire. I definitely remember. The fire pit was huge. That was like central to the experience, right right. So people would go out and cut their trees. The hay wagon would go around the forty acres and they'd get off and find their tree, and when the trailer would come back around the tractor, they'd put the trees on the trailer and then bring. It back over cool. So when they were really cold, they looked for that second or third kipt hot chocolate or cop Yeah, the girls always kept that going.

34:11 Oh, that's so sweet. So the animal tours, is that something you guys just did or did I just like take over and like make that up. Well, you spend half your time out there, and you like to show the children of the animals, and you named a lot of Oh, of course, of course you were kind of our tour guide out there. I was just wondering if that was like something that you told me to do or if I just like did it. You pretty much took it on your own. Oh okay, for your health. At first, and you loved it. You loved being around the animals. Entrepreneur, you know, Okay, I have this vivid memory and I don't know if it happened of the roll Off family taking a picture with Santa and me like run through and ruining their photo. Did this happen or did I make this up? It happened. I ruined their Christmas photo.

35:09 I mean, I'm sure they retook it and everything, but I just like lived my entire life thinking, oh my god, I completely ruined their Christmas photo. They had no Christmas photo that year because this little dumb kid like ran through their photo. And I actually had them a couple of times. You loved it. You were so tired by the end of the day that you were there bright and early every morning to help me finished baking the cookies and get them up there. You had the biggest smile on your face all the time. We missed it. Can we own a Christmas tree farm again? Is that like something we can do?

35:51 You can? Is it hard work? Grandma's getting up there? Yes, yeah, it's her around. You know, you're either tipping, topping, trimming trees, fertilizing, cutting grass, cutting the. Grass, planting new ones, the new ones. Yeah, it's a lot of work. But when you have a U cut Christmas tree firm, and you see the joy that people and families are having and it becomes a tradition in their family to come up. And we've watched little babies grow up to be you know, teenagers. Yes, that's pretty great. I love that.

36:34 And having the Santa Claus there, that was great because the kids would go in and they'd tell Santa what they want for Christmas. And I remember once Santa he asked, what would you like for Christmas? And she put her hands on her hips and she goes anything but Barbie and more Barbie cloathes. And the father turned and looked at me and said, I need to go shopping again. Oh no, Oh it was fun. One young youngster, he could have been maybe seven eight years old. They had moved into a new home and he was so worried that Santa. Wasn't gonna be able to find their home. Oh, so he was getting stip by stip instructions to get to their new home.

37:20 Yeah, in their old home. It was really cute. It's very important. Yes, Sana, Now did. You get that? We do? We have a Santa's Helper actually right here. How how does it feel to have helped Sanna out and pretended to be him. I think I need to bleed the fifth. You were Sanna. Don't lie to the people, I mean Santas helper helper. Yes, well, it depends on which children he. Asked, So you took a lot of requests, A lot of requests. Had to deal with sticky smelling children all day.

38:06 I thought that must have been just a blast. They had to probably deal with me more than anything. How many they chased me around for a while? And remember that, did. You give out candy cans? Candy canes? How many candy canes do you think you gave out in your sandt a lifetime? Oh gosh, I wouldn't even be able to answer that. A lot? How many thousands. Now kids deserved just one candy cane? Oh so you spoiled them rotten, I see how it is. I think my favorite memory was it's okay that came up and asked me if I could make it snow. Oh well, i'll tell you what. I got friends in places.

38:50 Let me see what I can do. And it wasn't. An hour later it was almost a blizzard. What really was like America? So you're the true Santa Claus to. Me, give me a big old hug, thank you. That's how the universe works. Man was like the best ever, okay, And being out there leaning all the kids around. That's so funny. I just had ship to do. You know, he needs a break right now, so you'll be you'll be back. Too. Yeah, my, but my brother was there, yes, sometime he was four.

39:33 He started, Wow, we had the tree farm, what seventeen years time? Just subs by good times. Okay. So I have this memory and this was I think during the off season. It could have been fall, I'm not really sure. And it was me and like probably Jody and Nikki and Stacy like going across to the Christmas tree Farm when no one was over there, you know, and just like wandering around and we would explore the forest or whatever. And I remember we found, uh, like a deer or an elk head on a log out there, and it was the spookiest thing I remember ever seeing. And I just didn't I didn't know until you explained to me that you when you want to keep like the bones and stuff, you let the bugs eat the all the meat or whatever and all the creatures so you.

40:25 Can just have the bones. But I just thought it was the spookiest thing to ever happen. So this was real, right, Probably the elk passed through you. Were on a farm out there, I mean there was every now and then we'd find your horns or skulls. Yeah, different animals. But this was like just purposely placed on a log. And I was like, oh, like you know, devil worship or something. No. Yeah, elk migrated through and they'd go down. Do you remember the pond down at the bottom the edge of the property.

41:06 I kind of do. They would go down. There and that's where they'd stay, and then they'd pass back through. Your Dad and I and up early one morning it was before opening, and I'd fix coffee and we were pouring our coffee and looking out the kitchen window towards the pasture, and I would Mike, we don't own that many horses, and the elk were in our pasture out there with the horses were just running. Around going nuts. They were just grazing. But yes, they passed through twice a.

41:46 Year, Mike. Sometimes just depends. There was a migratory herd and there was a non migratory her So the one the non migratory. Would just do circles. They as through the property quite a bit more often than he realized. The migratory herd would show up. You know, I kind of group up all before you know, the winter months, and they created a bunch of having for the farmers. M I remember looking out across the field when you know, across probably two miles away. I could see the neighbors farm over there one year, and the day before it was all green grass, all luscious, you know, beautiful colored hillside. And I looked looked out that day and seeing said, well, they must have plowed their field. About the time I said that, the whole hillside shifted.

42:40 Oh. They were nothing I've ever. Seen in my life. They got spook and took off. But I was actually looking out a whole herd about from the distance that was, it looked like it was like a freshly plowed field. Wow, that's how many was out there. So people hunt out there always, Yeah, not so much anymore. Most most is private. But whose head? So whose deerhad was this that was out there on the log? Who knows we had? We had elkhorns to the entrance, you know, hanging up above. So that's why it was named elkhorn tree Farm.

43:22 Oh. I didn't even think to ask what it was called. I didn't know what it was called. That's hard for picking up horns that you know, they had shed during this season started. By Bill and Marge, Wilmine, and and and and sons and you know, and grandsons and daughters, and there's everybody fished in and did their part for a while and had it going on for years. You did your part. Family farm. It was family farm. It was family tree farm and nursery. And it's not there anymore, right, Nope, nope, bumber.

44:03 Now there's three big mansions on the entire properties. Of course, there's a great. Vineyard back there, winery or something. I don't know, it's been a while. We have a total of eighty acres. Wow. So Prety puts on one side of the road where are the horses in our home? And then right across the where's the tree bar? And that led into more you know, bile land land and. Power lines and stuff back there, so we really didn't have any neighbors on the backside. It was yeah, nice place to grow up. Yeah, I remember just wandering around everywhere in the forest.

44:43 You go out and be busy all day rolling. Around, find our way back. Me who doesn't know directions, would find her way back as a child from the forest. I have no idea how. You get that being lost from you and Caleb for me. I do. That's where I got it from my grandma. Yep, you do. Mike, Jason, and Tim, we're constantly's saying, Mom, you missed the turn. Where are we now? I should be going the other. Direction, going on an adventure. Even when we traveled that year and a half, they wouldn't even let me hold the map.

45:23 The answer was the same, we've never been down this road before, and then see what's down here exactly? You never know what you're gonna run into. We decided to go the other way this time. So I have to ask if anything scarier spooky happened anything. Do you see any ghosts on the tree farm or any cryptids? Bigfoot? Nothing? Black bear? Black bear? Okay, well bear's a theme on my podcast. You didn't know this, but. No, we had black bears that can Wow. Did you have to scare them off? Or I only came across and it was more afraid of me than it was than it was I mean, it's it's scared the crap out of me.

46:08 You're sure it wasn't Bigfoot, That wasn't it. No, I see him all the time further out Chill National Forest. Oh okay, we'll have to have you back on the show and tell us about that. Get a few stories for you. Okay. So there's really no ghosts or anything creepy that happened up in the woods. It was just a magical place. It was. I mean, I love that, but I'm also slightly disappointed. Sorry, we need to find that place. The shadow guy in the at the tree Farm.

46:49 In the window of the shop, the upstairs, the old the old shop that we built that used to be the original homestead house. Oh okay. So when I ask something spooky happened, y'all say no. And then you're like, oh, well wait, there's a shadow guys. I forgot all about that. You want Christmas to scary? Okay? Tell me we need okay, because in the in this Christmas song, what's the one where they talk about scary ghost stories. We gotta tell sairy scary ghost stories at Christmas. Okay. I was. I was coming back from the from the tree farm on the the shide of the road, heading back to the house, and I was the only one on the property, only one there.

47:35 And I got my big. Mag light with me, mag light, mag light, the old school flashlights, you know, and then and uh, I get to the gate across the road, get to the gate, and then somebody's up and upstairs standing in the window of that old old house which is our shop, and like right, and I yell, who's up there? Who are you? You know? And I headed for it and then I got there pretty quickly. There's only one way you can come down that place, and there stairwell in the back, and that stairwell, nobody was there. I went straight upstairs and nobody was there.

48:19 So it was a ghost for sure. That was my spooky moment up there. I love that. Did you hear anything or answers? Even went back to the gate and looked back up to see if maybe there was something there that was casting the shadows that maybe I saw. There was nothing. Thereat, the bats in the shape of a human, all the sky puppies. He was. Mason was just really young. I think he was only about four. And Tim and Mason started in there because I put pumpkins inside and they were going to pick up these pumpkins and walked in and I heard Tims green like a girl there running out and stand there.

49:12 With the pumpkins. I love you, my uncle Tim. Scared of fats who knew Wow, Okay, we're going to do a moon oracle reading, just about think about the Christmas tree farm and the stories you told, and just kind of go through the deck and pick out a card she's pulling. Okay, what did we get? Oh okay, we got tranquility. Oh my gosh. Look there's a bunch of trees on it. So it's like a crescent moon with a bunch of trees and a bird on top. And it's called tranquility. And then I have an interpretation in here that we're going to read. There's a quote and it says the mind is like water. When it's turbulent, it's difficult to see. When it's calm, everything becomes clear.

50:12 That's kind of interesting because right now we're sitting in my car and it's downpouring and it's like a flood warning. That's pretty funny. The keywords are calmness, meditation, and healing. Use the powerful realm of your mind to bring you into a state of tranquility. Only you can do this for yourself. Allow peacefulness to replace any negativity trying to harbor inside of you. Choose to plant loving thoughts in your mind and banish all negative energy from taking hold. This process does not take practice. Oh wait, just kidding. This process does take practice. So please do not become discouraged.

50:54 Let light into your life little by little, or pull the blinds wide open. Guard yourself diligently against harmful energy. Try your utmost to avoid any darkness. Yesterday, I mean I was living. Yeah, this morning, I gotta Okay, you need to stop. Yeah, only you can change what's happening. So I'm tired of negativity. Yeah, and so I decided today I was going to go forward. Oh well, it sounds like it's a good thing. It sounds like the cards are telling me. To do that. Yeah, I know. I love how the cards work.

51:36 Seek out methods to promote your positive mindful tranquility, meditation, yoga, self help books, maybe useful practices and tools, but it sounds like just changing your mind, like a more positive mindset is. What you're trying to do. Infuse your being with love and light, Sit with your soul quietly, find inner peace. I really like that too about the Christmas tree pun because. You're saying, how like peaceful it was and nice and it brings light and joy. Yeah, a lot of work, Yeah, it was worth it. Just watching those family Yeah, spending all the time with our family doing it altogether. Yeah, you girls. Had a lot of fun.

52:16 Well, thank you. Thank you for letting us kids work, you know, like you could have easily just made us sit down and shut up. Yeah. Yeah on your TV. Yeah. Kids need to stop doing that. They need to stop spending so much time with their games and TV. Yeah, and trust them with work. I mean, even if they don't do it perfectly. I'm sure I did not do it perfectly. But Cassie, I've been working since I was thirteen years old. Me too. I'm a lot like you work wise and things life wise. Dad always said, you just do what you have to do to survive. It doesn't matter if you're rich or you're poor. You just make just do it. So that's why I'm working. Everybody's always just sit down. Don't you ever just sit in There's things that need to be dead. Yeah, time to sit down in the evening at the end of the day.

53:13 Exactly got you to do running around? That's where I get I think you like me running through someone's photos. I was probably just trying to get to the next job. Like, well, thank you so much for talking with me. I love you, I love you too. Have a creepy holiday season, and we'll see you next Thursday. Yeah, on Christmas. I can't believe Christmas is the fucking week, dude, Like, bye, Christmas is next week. We're gonna do one more recording after this. To like say goodbye, thank you. I love you, I love you too. We're not done.

53:56 I'm gonna force you to do this again. Why I want to hear stories? Tell me too. I love them stories. All of your stories, they're great. Some of them you don't want to hear. Oh no, those are the ones I'm so interested in. Grandma used to be a cowgirl. Yeah, like I feel like I'm going on roundups and ship. Yeah, she has a lot of stories. We're gonna have a whole Grandma Sandy podcast dedicated to you in your story. Yes we are, We're doing it. Okay, we'll get it out of you.