Entropy on the path to a Christmas Tree


Above: The boys at Tannenbaum Tree Farm circa 2002. Our home is off beyond the treeline behind them.

We moved out to the boonies 10 years ago not long after our return from the UK. We were pleasantly surprised to find many tree farms around our house. The first few years we just walked to the nearest of them, Tannenbaum Tree Farm to pick and cut our holiday tree. For several years we’d walk a path through a 44 acre wood that existed behind our property and exit right at the tree farm. The family that ran Tannenbaum had created an ideal world for the acquisition of Christmas trees. A log shelter with a warm fire in a cast-iron stove. Hot cider. Candy canes. Some small decorative gifts for sale. Custom-built tree-netting stands between the shelter and the parking area. Just grab your saw and go pick your tree. They had a great assortment of VERY nice trees. Like I said in the beginning we would walk over and cut our tree and carry it home. One year we even did it while it was snowing. It was sort of magical.

It was obvious that they treated their customers like family and many people would drive from as far away as Seattle every year to pick their tree. People there were always smiling and happy, even if it was wet, or cold, or snowing. Magical.


Above: Sue & Nick at Tannenbaum Tree Farm circa 2002

Then the 44 acre wood was clear cut and some developer built a housing development on it. So we would all just pile into the old pickup truck and go drive ‘around the block’ (though that is about a 2 mile drive) to Tannenbaum and select our tree. They would always ask if we needed it netted, and we always answered with “No, we live just over there” (pointing east towards the mountains).

This year we received a post card just before Thanksgiving from the Tannenbaum Tree farm that said they were no longer selling trees, and thanked us for our years of patronage. One of our little family traditions was lost!

This weekend the family decided that we had to get our tree now, so they pulled me away from my computer and we went off in search of a tree. All the Christmas Tree Farms that littered the neighborhood have all vanished! Every last one has been replaced with housing developments. We saw a sign advertising one on the road down to Granite Falls, so Nick & I went there. Boy were we disappointed. Scraggly little trees that only Charlie Brown could love, and all of them outrageously priced. I can’t recall paying more than about $40 for a tree and Tannenbaum, and in fact most years it was less than $30. Not a single tree at this other place was less than $35 and all the reasonably good looking or tall ones were priced between $75 & $150! Not only that but it was all out in a muddy field behind a travel trailer. Not what I would remotely call “magical”.

We gave up on tree farms… ok tree farm.. and drove into town and grabbed a tree at the grocery store. A fine looking and quite tall Douglas Fir. (Logical since one fell over in our yard exactly one year ago!) I paid $20 for it.

On our way home Nick & I drove past Tannenbaum, and their trees are there, but they are closed. Out in front is a Snohomish County Land Use Permit application sign. Obviously the site of another housing development, coming soon.

It is official: The Boonies have devolved into the Suburbs.

8 thoughts on “Entropy on the path to a Christmas Tree”

  2. Sadly, this is happening not just here in the States, but in Australia and, I suspect, anywhere. It’s certainly happening out here in the corn, where Chuck has visited and can confirm it’s pretty hard to get farther from the population center of Denver and *reasonably* commute.
    Since you’ve been here (Feb 06), Chuck, 10 new houses have been built, all within a 5 mile radius of ‘mi casa.’
    As for the development of ‘two acres, or above?” That’s just a selfish way old farts have of blocking what’s inevitable..and I, for one, am glad us old ‘open space or DIE” dinosaurs are dying off…we simply *cannot* have our 5 acre ranchettes, anymore (sez he, who lives on such!).
    *We* (humans) are overpopulating this small speck of dirt and rock and someday, perhaps sooner rather than later, are *going to* crash. Not if, but when. With any luck at all, it’ll be after I’m long gone; it might VERY unfortunately happen in Chris’ or Nick’s lifetime, which is a fate I shudder to think about.
    Garrett Hardin had it right, back in 1968…there is *no* technological fix for this…ah, *issue.*

    http://www.dieoff.org/page95.htm

  3. Hehehehe…”Tannenaum Xmas Tree Farm?” Means ‘Christmas Tree Christmas Tree Farm’…im Deutsch!
    Kinda like the mountain in Golden, by Coors…’Table Mesa!”

  4. Chuck, next year you might consider going to the tree farm we always visit which is the Pt. Valdimar tree farm just west of Silvana. Just drive into Silvana and head west just north of “downtown” (nyuk) Silvana. Well marked with signs, you drive through a big Arabian horse area. (Big area, not big, um, horses. At least, not compared to other Arabian horses.) Inexpensive, great selection, family operation, free netting. And the golden retrievers are glad to see ya.

  5. Thanks Mark. I am quite familiar with that area as it is liberally sprinkled with very nice driving roads… out there on the Stillaguamish delta.

    Do you live up here in NoSnoCo?

    –chuck

  6. Hi, Chuck: I live in Lake Forest Park. We have a weekend place on Camano Island. I enjoy the drive between Silvana and Stanwood. My favorite sweeping corner is just south of the “edge of the road” dairy farm. If only I was ever alone and could take it at speed!

    By the way, there is an E-type that looks VERY similar to yours I routinely see driving through Lake Forest Park. I’m not sure of the other similarities, but it’s an OTS of the same color – doesn’t have your “license plate” on the bonnet so I know it’s not yours. Do you know of this doppelganger auto by any chance?

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