In the Begining:  Jims father, Al,  purchases the original 40 acres and the family home in about 1952.  He paid $4,500 for the homestead.  It had running water for the kitchen; that was it.  Al continually improved the house with a full indoor bathroom, and fuel oil furnace, and an automatic washing machine.

However, Jim's thought were on how to use the somewhat sandy soil that was typical of the farm.  Jim proposed to his Dad they should try growing Christmas trees.  That plan soon fell on hard times when one hard winter voles destroyed most of the trees.

Jim needed a way to pay for college.  No one had gone to college in the family before so there was little sympathy for the costs that were going to be faced.  He struck a deal with Al to plant trees on the farm and pay for college that way.  That worked fine for about 6 years.  Jim came home from college one weekend to hear Al had sold the house and half the farm.  You guessed it, he with out remembering the bargain had sold the trees.

This story could have ended much differently and it would have except for the tenacity of Jim.  Ten years later Al sold to Jim the remaining half of the farm with an apology for his earlier mistake.  Jim immediately started planting trees and purchasing adjoining acreage. 

Today:  Today the farm is over 80 acres and has 25, 000 trees in cultivation.  Hundreds of families visit the farm each year to choose and cut their special Christmas tree.  It serves as a supplemental source of income for the family and is vital for college costs for Jim's children, Christopher at Michigan Tech and Whitney at Northern Michigan University.

As a family, the hard work of growing Christmas trees gets sandwiched in with all the other things, like homework from school.  Then there are the Alaskan huskies that spend summers at the farm before going North to train for Iditarod.  The balance between farm and dog work, and the necessary school work is always a challenge. But together we manage.