From Fleece to Fir

I have been raising sheep since before I was born. My parents raised and showed sheep and then I inherited the love of LAMB honestly. When I married Matt almost nine years ago I married into the Christmas Tree business. I am a pretty hard worker so there was nothing new about all the manual labor. I had to brush up on all the different tree varieties, learn how to plant, shake, drill and tie a tree to a car.

I started out cutting trees and had to learn the business from start to finish. After I had our first child Dave and Jan (Matt's parents) promoted me to the inside shop where it was warm.

I must say the warmth is nice but there is something about helping families find their Christmas Tree and hauling it back to their car.

Our family just spent a few days at the tree farm, cleaning out the barn and working on the new addition and of course mowing and shearing the trees.

I have yet to be handed the shearing knife by my father in law but Matt the oldest of the four boys has been shearing for a few years now. Shearing is the most important job and the job that can make or break the perfect tree.

I spent most of my last few days on the mower and organizing the shop. Mowing is a an important job of course but not held to as high regard as "Shearing" . Maybe in a few more years I will add shearing Christmas Trees to my resume. How may people can say they can shear a sheep and a tree?