Cair Paravel Enterprises: It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year: Part I

Monday, January 16, 2012

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year: Part I

Christmas at Cair Paravel is celebrated with the gathering of family, incredible food, and huge trees. Every year for the passed who-knows-how-many Christmases the Ledford family Christmas tree has gotten bigger and bigger. This year was no exception. We decided to support a local business, so Whitt, Martha, Maddie, Mia, our good friend and farm-helper-extraordinaire Max, and I headed to Spruce Rock Farm Inc. in Madison, Va just north of Stanardsville. There we had a great selection of trees ranging all sizes. Tim, the owner of the farm, was more than helpful and gave us the grand tour of the tree selection, and pricing.

Mia ready to tree hunt!

Max enjoying some hot cider as he waits for the search to begin!

After looking through the selection (and a lot of convincing) Maddie chose the biggest tree available for the Ledford family tree: a nineteen foot monster of a douglas fir. Mia and I were excited to choose our second tree together as a married couple, and our first tree living up on the farm. We don't have quite as much space for a tree as Whitt and Martha do in the main house, so we settled on a measly little eleven foot tall tree.

Whitt standing in front of the chosen tree!

Mia and my choice!

Out with the chainsaws and our selected trees came tumbling down. Usually yelling "timber" is a bit unnecessary when it comes to Christmas trees, but these two were the exception. The video below is Mia and my tree being cut down.

With the trees felled all we had to do was load them up and off we were for home! Fortunately Tim let Whitt drive the truck to the tree as opposed to having to carry the tree all the way back up to the parking area. With the help of the farm owner, we were able to carry the smaller tree over to be loaded onto our car.