Pictures of our 2nd snow fall this year. We definitely don’t need any more moisture in the already saturated ground!
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- Christmas trees in winter
Oct 302011
Oct 302011
If you are a previous customer who had an account and are having trouble logging in to the new store, please do the following:
Go to the store’s home page https://www.christmastrees.net/shop/ and on the lower left sidebar there is a “login” area. Put in your email address (which is now your user name) and click on “forgot password?” A link to reset it will be emailed to you. Unlike the last shopping cart, this works. I can’t see your password so I can’t send it to you..more privacy for the user!
We sent an email to everyone back in March with this information and much more, but many were not thinking about Christmas back then!
Thanks a bunch!
Rich
Oct 102011
As we have for many years, Redrock Farm is participating, along with our wonderful customers both local and on-line, in the Christmas Spirit Foundation and FedEx sponsored Trees for Troops program.
I was reminded to brag about this when our second generous mail order customer in California sponsored a Tree for Troops for 2011. We have already pledged our normal 10 trees.
From 2008 through 2010 alone, Redrock Farm and it’s customers gave 93 Christmas trees and $1360 in donations to the Trees for Troops program.
Pretty impressive!
Sep 112011
Today Stephanie and I feel lucky to live of the land a a Christmas tree farmer and nursery operator and to live in a country that allows us to be what we want and do what we do. The following is definitely not intended to be a political statement-I don’t make political statements.
10 years ago I was a Senior Chief Electronics Technician in the US Navy and was on board a fast combat support ship steaming toward the Suez Canal in the Red Sea. We had been deployed for five months in the Persian Gulf in support of the oil embargo/blockade of Iraq and in the Indian Ocean off the “Stans” for exercises with NATO and our battle group. We were on our way to a much needed liberty visit in Turkey and then home.
It was evening as I walked through the Chief’s Mess after my treadmill running hour and looked up at the TV to see the first of the twin towers on fire and falling. (Thanks to my great technicians we were able to watch CNN live on our satellite TV system)
As the rest of the horror played out and the talking heads began to surmise that this was the work of Al Qeida, I had many mixed feelings. Horror, dread, sympathy, and disbelief were the main ones. I knew that within hours we would be going back where we came from. Sure enough, within a couple hours we were doing a course reversal headed to an area off Afghanistan. We were the first ship on station.
In the days that led up to the first missile strikes and bombing of Afghanistan’s mountainous region, I had a lot of time to think and wonder why we were terrorized and why were we here. Unlike most of my shipmates, I did not feel strong anger or feel that we needed to seek revenge. I had known for many years that our US foreign policy of helping other countries, but at the same time meddling in their affairs and dictating their actions, would someday lead to more terrorism. I actually felt that the best thing we could do was ignore the whole thing. I could see in our future a conflict that would never really end. In a way, we continue the jihad as much as the other side does.
It turns out that my feeling was genuine. Not only have we lost thousands more lives in Afghanistan and, because of our fears, Iraq, but Osama Bin Laden has done what he set out to do. He had cost us a couple trillion dollars in wars and a couple trillion more on vast homeland security measures that helped bring our economy to it’s knees…
I hope we learn from what has happened to let other countries do as they please. It is still right to give aid and help in disasters as we always have..that it what makes us great….long live the United States as long as we learn to tolerate and get along.
Sep 012011
Fortunately, Irene’s visit to us resulted in very little damage on our farm and hasn’t affected our operations. Jenkins Brook, which borders our farm on the south and west, overflowed it’s banks for the first time that we know of, we had some minor road washout, and some minor flooding out our Christmas tree fields. Our greenhouses also had some minor flooding, but no seedlings were affected.
The interesting thing about the visit from a tropical storm is that she was the 3rd “100 year” event in the past year and 4th true weather anomaly of year. Third snowiest winter on record; rainiest March and April ever, resulting in the record flooding of lake Champlain; tornadoes in Vermont!; and now tropical storm Irene, which caused extensive damage to anything that was near a river or large stream. I’m not sure I believe in global warming, but the climate is definitely changing to warmer and wetter in this area and we’re going to need to adjust.
Aug 162011
Our shopping cart is ready for Christmas orders. And, has always been our practice, the earlist orders get the best trees!
This is a test to see if how many people actually read these posts. You will get a 10% discount on any order through the end of 2011 if you use the coupon code NEWSTORE.
Aug 152011
Now that I’ve been shearing our Christmas trees for about a month, I can see that this years trees are much improved over the previous two years. In 2009 and 2010 new growth on balsam firs was killed by late frosts and that caused most trees to be less than beautiful. This year, not only was there no killing frost, but the summer has been less wet, so the trees are looking REALLY NICE.
Jul 182011
We began our fifth crop of plug seedlings by putting water to the seeded trays on June 28th. Most, but not all, of the seeds have germinated and are beginning their life. We will begin to fertilize and transplant those that are crowding each other in about a week.
We have begun shearing Christmas trees for this year. That process will take me until mid September to get to every tree, pull weeds, shape and correct tops, and shear each one.
Our new this year shopping cart is ready for sales of Christmas trees and other decorations. Remember, the early birds get the best trees!