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Make your new home feel special at the holidays
Topics: farm, Christmas, holidays, activities, Bakersfield christmas, Bakersfield holidays
Posted by admin Mon Jun 4, 2007 08:47:08 PDT
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The Friday after Thanksgiving is a bright winter day and the sharp, tangy smell of pine trees mixes with wood smoke at Lawrence’s Brite Valley Tree Farm just west of Tehachapi.

We twist down a narrow driveway lined with evergreen trees to a small parking lot, where nine-year-old Jackson Emerson hops out of the car, ready for a Christmas tree hunt.

Hand-painted signs hanging at the farm’s garage declare: “The best trees you ever SAW,” and “YULE love our trees.”

A cheery crew of Lawrence family members hands us a pair of long-handled tree-cutting saws, and a few straightforward instructions:

• Tromp around the 12-acre tree farm as long as you like until you find a perfect tree.

• When you cut, take care to leave a spiral of branches at the base so the tree will regenerate in a few years.

• Take extra boughs home for a wreath.

Deftly wielding the saw, which stands a full head taller than he, Jackson leads our group through a wall of pine branches.

Spirits are high. The hunt is on.

Our group is relatively thin on experience when it comes to the cutting-the-tree-down part of the job, but everyone knows what a picture-perfect tree looks like.

“The size of me, but a little bit taller. A silver-tipped one,” Jackson says enthusiastically.

Jackson’s mother, Amanda Jackson, favors a tree with a more traditional look, like the ones her family cut down in Lassen National Forest near Redding when she was a young girl.

“I look for a Charlie Brown Christmas tree,” Amanda’s husband, Dylan Jensen, says with a smile.

The family briefly considered an artificial tree, and then decided against.

“Smell is very important, it just gives the whole feeling of Christmas when you walk into the house and you can smell a wonderful pine tree,” Jensen says.

We push on for 10 minutes, stopping to examine a half-dozen trees.

The trees on this farm come in all shapes and sizes, from gnome-like bulbs to towering pyramids.

As long as your living room can handle it, any tree — be it a shapely White Fir or a gangly Douglas Fir — can be had for $40 or less at the Lawrence family’s tree farm, a low-key family-run business, now in its fourth decade of operation.

Virginia Lawrence, who with her husband George opened the cut-your-own Christmas tree farm in 1972, said people walk a long way to the find the perfect tree.

Some people bring a family, and leave people at each tree until they pick out the right one, Lawrence said.

“It's fun, it's just plain fun,” she said.

There is no shortage of oddly-shaped trees to choose from on this farm, said Stan Furnace-Lawrence, who’s worked the farm since it opened. His three kids now put in their time at the farm as well.

We make our way uphill, weaving our way through one tree after another, all eyes ahead, scouting for the perfect triangle of green limbs.

And there it is. Everyone stops. A graceful, 7-foot White Fir and its slightly shorter cousin seem to beckon us with their gently waving branches.

Jackson sets to work. It takes longer than anyone expects — sawing a four-inch, White Fir trunk proves tougher than it looks. So does hauling the heavy tree back to the parking lot. White Firs aren't lightweights.

Stan Furnace-Lawrence tells us he expects trees to go fast this year, with the best trees gone by the second weekend of December.

As he helps us tie the trees down for the trip back to Bakersfield, he gives us a final word of advice: Leave the tree in a bucket of water the first night, so it's fully hydrated before you bring it into the house.

My advice: Definitely buy the $1 tree bag for the trip home – pine needles shed fast at 65 miles per hour.

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Lawrence's Brite Valley Tree Farm

Where: 19669 Banducci Road, Tehachapi

Open: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Cost: Douglas Fir: $30; White Fir: $40; trees over 7-feet tall: $40; includes the loan of a saw.

Tree varieties: White Fir, Douglas Fir, Scotch Pine, Redwood, Knobcone Pine.

Directions: From Bakersfield about 44 miles, or 1 hour drive time; take Highway 58 to Exit #202 into Tehachapi; follow Tucker Road to Highline Road; turn right onto Highline; turn left on Banducci Road.

Phone: 661-822-0214.

Santa's Forest

Where: 19040 South Shafter Ave, Shafter

Cost: $33.80 plus tax for Grand, Noble and Douglas Fir trees; pre-cut Oregon trees also for sale.

Hours: Tuesday to Thursday: 12 to 5:30 p.m.; Friday to Sunday: 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Phone: 661-746-3714

Don’t delay: Santa’s Forest may sell out of U-cut trees as early as December 10.

Tehachapi Organics U-Pick Farm

Where: 21658 Highline Road, Tehachapi

Phone: 661-823-8058.

Cost: $25 any size tree

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