It' Coming on Christmas

In the Village of Yellow Springs, we’ve had a holiday event for many years – the Christmas Tree Festival.  I’ve attended it not every year, but started about 32 years ago with my son.  The Yellow Springs High School has a school Christmas tree forest.  Students work for approximately six weeks in the summer planting trees and watering them.  When my son was in high school, he participated in the school forest planting trees and tending them.  At that time the students were paid minimal wage for their work.

The Friday night before the festival, the high school students sleep overnight at the forest, which is adjacent to Glen Helen Nature Preserve.  The students sleep in a tepee and of course have chaperones.  It is almost always cold.

The Saturday of the festival, the students make hot chocolate and have homemade bake goods to serve to families that attend the festival to pick out and chop down their own tree.  Students act as guides for the families, walking them to the tree field to select their tree and will even help cut down the tree. 

There is a tractor with a wagon to take families who find it difficult to walk to the field and to bring back trees.  One year after foot surgery, Alan and I attended and the students were very sweet helping me to get on the wagon, cutting down the tree and bringing us back.

This year my son, his wife, and my grandson Ajax attended the festival with us.  Our friend DP, a photographer, was there to document the festival and take photographs for publicizing Greene County.  He used our family for some of the photos, so I hope to have some lovely photos of all of us with Ajax (about a month and a half old).  It was a great way to begin the holiday season.  We found a lovely imperfect tree about 6 feet tall, just right for us.

Magnum is 7 months old and is a little bigger than Shadow.  I am taking him to the Vets to day to weigh him.  He continues to be somewhat shy with strangers and I think this is his personality.  I continue to take him places to socialize him.  He is the first Springer I’ve had that was shy.  He has a lovely sweet personality and is such a good and bright dog.  Last night in agility class we were practicing the weaves.  At this time he just runs through them.  He’s the only dog in the class that can be left in a stay.  I put him in front of the weaves, walked to the end and said okay.  He ran around the weaves and came to me.  So I put him back in a stay and went to the end and said, “weave” and he raced through them.  He has already learned the word weave!  He knew the difference between “okay” and “weave”.