Bees, Fleas, and Trees Home

		We are opening the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 26th thru December 23, 2011! HOURS: Weekends 9 AM to 4:30 PM Weekdays 1 PM to 4:30 PM Wow, what a year! Can you believe it? Seems like we should have been building arks only to find in October (so soon!) that we needed snow shoes - big time. The week without power didn't help. In spite of all this weather, Bees Fleas & Trees came through the year relatively unscathed. In the spring, I potted 500 Fraser Fir seedlings (well, Canaan - a Fraser Fir wanna' be) with 500 Meyers Spruce seedlings ordered for 2012. Still learning my way with the Meyers but that seems to be the Spruce Christmas tree of the future.
	Our inventory shows considerably more marketable trees than our previous record - which was just last year. We have more of everything - Spruce, Fraser/Canaan/Concolor Fir and White Pine. The biggest increase is in the Fraser Fir/Spruce category. With all the rain, the color is excellent - lots up to and over 8 ft. And the trees seem to be much fuller in this year. I think you will notice the difference. We have a load of Spruce trees from our NY farm available Saturday December 3rd. It is always interesting to see what is delivered (compared to what we tagged) but all the trees should be 8-10 ft.
	We have both consolidated and reduced our prices. All Choose & Cut trees "on the hill" have been reduced to $45 - a four year roll back to 2007 prices. All NY trees will be $35. Last year we were charging as much as $50 depending on size. Now one size fits all. The Table Tops are not quite half price any more ($25) but the trees have been thinned out and with the additional space, the trees have filled in nicely. Some of the Table Tops are pushing 6 ft.
	Had another difficult year with our bees - got just enough honey for some small gift bottles. Arranging for some "rental" chickens for tree sale. It is nice to have them scratching around in December. Still have our dog Toby.
	My brother Nick and my niece Sarah will be back again. The Christmas Shop will have signed copies of our daughters' books. Catherine's latest Wisdom's Kiss, the follow up to Princess Ben is here. Her children are active teens and busy with school activities. Liz is working on a new novel. Hard to believe we are great-grandparents. Our Aussie grandson Zo and his wife Tara had baby Elliot this summer.

1975-2011