A'Hunting We Will Go, A'Hunting We Will Go

Hunting Christmas trees, that is. We have a tradition of going to a local Christmas tree farm each year to cut down our tree. For the last couple of years, though, it's been fairly close to Christmas before we managed to get the family together to make the trek to a farm. (As kids get older, scheduling becomes more of an issue.) Anyhow, we made it out yesterday to a nearby farm in Lake St. Louis —70+ acres of rolling hills and scattered trees. This farm's layout is interesting in that the trees are scattered throughout the acreage but not in neat "tree farm" rows like you'd expect; rather, they're planted in patches where the ground is reasonably flat and open. Finding a decent tree requires a bit of walking and wandering, and given the lateness in the season, some serious searching as most of the really good trees have already been cut.

This little lake (pond?) sits near the front of the property. To get to the trees, you walk around the lake into the hills beyond.