11/26/2009
Loch Lolly farm celebrates 35 years of bringing families joyful trees
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| Loch Lolly farm celebrates 35 years of bringing families joyful trees |
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Ed Langlois
NORTH PLAINS — On a crisp fall day, while Terry Burns pruned a small fir soon to be someone’s Christmas tree, a family of deer crept up and watched.
Burns turned from his work to greet the doe, fawn and lovelorn stag. The creatures left, only to return moments later in a merry chase. The tall, mustachioed man and the animals shared the quiet.
That’s life in Loch Lolly Christmas Forest, a 35-acre home of events that tend toward the magical. Deer swim in the pond for no apparent reason and reindeer just show up around Christmastime.
“There’s something about Loch Lolly,” says Burns, who with wife Patti took on the Christmas tree farm after his parents retired from it eight years ago. Terry and Patti had helped his folks ever since the elder Burns bought the place in 1986. Loch Lolly was established in 1974.
The original owner had a Scottish bent and named the pond after his wife, Lolly. The lyrical moniker has endured.
The most common magic here is human-made. For 35 years, families have chosen this quiet dale as the place to cut their own Christmas trees. In many cases, three generations have kept up the Loch Lolly tradition, sipping hot cocoa in the warming shelter, feeding geese, seeing St. Nick, perusing the gift cottage and searching the hillsides for the right fir.
“There is something about making people happy when they come at Christmastime,” Terry says. “I just love it. They are so giddy. People come here to have an experience.”
He recalls one family perched on the dock as it snowed gently, singing Christmas songs, toasting the season with crystal stemware full of good wine.
Loch Lolly has a national following. Families come from Seattle, California and Idaho to get their trees each year. Folks place mail orders from as far as Florida.
Terry, 47, also has a full-time job at an agricultural supply shop in Hillsboro. On top of that, he’s a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician. He grew up in St. Clare Parish in Portland, attending the parish school and serving at the altar.
He loves his trees and is keen to talk of them, explaining the difference between a Douglas fir and a noble fir, singing the praises of his favorite, the Nordman, which has four different colors, depending on the angle of view.
Have a small house or an apartment? Burns suggest the Frasier fir, which is slimmer than other species.
“There’s more to it than planting trees and letting them grow,” Terry says of his craft. Seedlings, for example, are best planted in the drip lines of mature trees, to get summer water. Weeds need to be controlled and the forest floor cleared of debris. And trees don’t naturally grow in that conical shape most people like in their living rooms. That’s something Burns does with shears in the fall. The clipping also creates space for a fuller tree, with more branches for ornaments.
In 2004, Loch Lolly hosted a tour of 22 German Christmas tree growers. The visitors were curious about the number of trees planted and the number sold each year. In a letter back to the Burns, the Germans called their time at Loch Lolly a highlight of the tour.
“You obviously love what you are doing at your Christmas tree farm and your enthusiasm as well as technical knowledge came through loud and clear,” they wrote.
Patti likes it when Terry has been working in the forest, because it makes him so fragrant. He thinks of the trees as nature’s deodorant.
Patti, who handles the Loch Lolly paperwork and other business aspects, has side projects of her own, including as lead organizer of the North Plains Elephant Garlic Festival. The couple also run the area’s annual Easter egg hunt. Patti was named North Plains volunteer of the year in 2007.
Terry and Patti donate trees to a program operated by radio station KUIK, which helps provide Christmas for needy families.
Patti sits at her kitchen table working on a laptop. She’s surrounded by small boards with green paint drying; they’ll serve as signs in the forest, which is visible out a picture window.
At key times like trimming and harvest, friends and family come to work and when they do, Patti makes up one of her celebrated pots of soup to keep the crew fed and warm.
Terry and Patti have four daughters, all of whom help at the farm during Christmas.
The Burns are models of bringing values to the community, says Anne King, a friend and member of St. Edward Parish in North Plains.
“We’re lucky to be able to call them friends,” King explains. “They’re fun people to be around and they’re always willing to lend a hand.”
Two reindeer will be making a guest appearance at Loch Lolly through Dec. 6, when they’ll need to return north to prepare for St. Nick’s trek. The tree farm is a permanent home to turkeys, rabbits and a friendly, pettable goat named Sadie.
In honor of the 35th anniversary, there will be drawings for 35 percent off purchases. Each day, the 35th family through the gates will get a free tree.
Loch Lolly, at 28366 NW Dorland Road., is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Dec. 23. Pre-cut trees are available for those who don’t want to saw their own, but most folks still like to head into the forest, just in case something magical happens.
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