Christmas traditions continue at Lazy J Tree Farm

PORT ANGELES — For every Christmas tree brought home, there is a tradition or a family story. The Johnson family knows that well.

Their Lazy J Tree Farm, at 225 Gehrke Road off Old Olympic Highway, whose Christmas tree U-Cut season is now in full swing, has been hosting traditions and stories for years now. It’s open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday during the winter and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday during the rest of the year.

Some traditions are just getting off their feet, though hearkening back to ancient principles.

Just before Thanksgiving, Mark Silkas and Steve Sahnow stopped by Lazy J to pick up a donated Noble fir to become the downtown Giving Tree, sponsored by the Friends of Sequim outside of the Habitat for Humanity store.

“They have been kind enough two years in a row to donate a gorgeous Noble fir,” Sahnow said.

That’s how long the Giving Tree has existed in Sequim. The tree went up on Nov. 30 and will remain there until Saturday for people to pick up and drop off toys and personal care items, Silkas said.

The men said the Interact Club at Sequim High School had helped the group wrap 500 items for the tree.

“It’s called the Giving Tree,” Silkas said. “But our motto is take what you want, but leave what you can.

“We’re trying to encourage kids to, ‘Yes, come and get a gift, but also learn about the beauty of giving to somebody else.’”

Other traditions are as old as the U-Cut part of Lazy J.

“I’ve been getting my tree here for 40 years,” said Gerald Wood, who was paying for an 8-foot Noble fir while his wife Robbin looked in the Christmas Barn, Lazy J’s farm store stocked with Christmas items, apple cider and produce as well as wreaths for sale on the outside wall.

“When we first started getting them, we had a giant log home with 20-foot ceilings, and I was getting 14- to 16-footers. In those days, I was young and powerful,” Wood said laughing, noting that the trees get heavier as he gets older.

“After the kids all left, we downsized and now we can get by with a 7- to 8-foot tree.”

He said store trees disintegrate faster than U-Cut, “because those were cut a month ago.”

“You cut it, you know it’s going to get you through New Year’s,” Wood said.

He added they always get a Noble fir because it’s perfect for homemade decorations from grandparents and great grandparents and giant decorations, like glass snowballs from Mount St. Helens.

Gather ’round

Ann and Steve Johnson told more stories about Christmas season traditions and occurrences through the years as they warmed their hands at the fire pit, an amenity for visitors and workers alike.

“We have groups of people that come … they know we have a fire pit,” they said. “They bring their whole lunch with them and hang out for hours.”

People buy hot apple cider in the barn and take pictures outside in wood cutouts.

The U-Cut, they said, has been “here so long people are starting to use it as a family tradition.”

“Everybody’s family has a different tradition,” Ann said. “It’s wonderful.”

The Johnsons shared a story about a woman whose mother’s plane came in late on Christmas Eve, their traditional day to choose their tree. Those two cut their tree by the headlights of their car, and the Johnsons gave them the last wreath that was on the barn, “and that was the end of our season,” the couple said.

They sell about 70 wreaths handmade by Ann and two other women each year.

The Johnsons also told a story about a “young man that came out and asked if he could decorate a tree, and we wondered, ‘What do you want to do that for?’ Well, we figured it out when he brought his girlfriend out.”

It was there that he proposed, and they became husband and wife.

Ann and Steve are a romantic couple, too, 10 years newlywed.

They like to go “yard saling” together. He looks for tools and she keeps her eyes open for Christmas lots, which she resells at Lazy J’s Christmas Barn: handmade items, stockings, ornaments, animatronic Santas and their kin, smalls puzzles — all kinds of things, different every year.

“I started doing this when we got married,” Ann said. “I needed something to do while he looked at tools. The only thing I don’t get are artificial trees, tree lights and artificial garlands because we have real trees.”

The trees, the farm and Steve

Lazy J grows and sells Douglas, Noble, Turkish, Grand and Nordman firs. There are 20,000 of them, Ann said, mixed together on 30 to 40 acres. About 1,200 are sold each year, she said.

Steve said the trees take time to get started.

“Five years just to get them sort of established,” he said, and then “the fields are ready around 10 to 12 years, depending on the type of tree.”

The farm also grows “heritage potatoes such as Ozettes, Austrian Crescents and German butterballs,” clumping bamboo, U-Pick blueberries and rhubarbs” in season, according to their website. And apples, such as Jonagolds, Greenstein, Melrose and Kings.

The story of the farm is intertwined with that of Steve, who has lived his whole life there. He’s also raised his son Graham, now is an essential part of farm operations.

“I’ve got the same phone number I was born with,” Steve said with a smile.

“My dad started the farm,” he explained. “He bought property in the mid-to-late ’50s and then planted the first trees in 1960.”

Steve said his father had 8 acres in raspberries and 10 acres in strawberries in the beginning.

The property today is 97 acres, some of which is Siebert Creek Valley, Steve said, with wild trees and plenty of wild animals, including red-tailed hawks that follow the tiller, a great blue heron seen perching on the pumphouse roof and deer that gnaw the baby trees.

“It’s nice to have wild land next to the farm,” Steve said.

Lazy J also hosts a variety of large artifacts, such as the approximately 6,000-pound concrete elephant, a smaller elephant, a triceratops and a giant octopus which adorn a junction of the farm’s roads.

The artist’s name is Donald Miller, Steve said. The previous owner “wanted them to go someplace where people would see them, and she knew the farm, so she ended up giving them to us.”

His wife likes to say, “The farm has the capacity.”

After Christmas

Lazy J also is known as a place to purchase compost, top soil and mulch, and as a place to bring yard waste.

“I didn’t choose this business, it kind of grew,” Steve said.

“When I was starting years ago, I collected whatever carbon source I could find — hay, wood chips — … and used it for building soils. And then, I started taking Christmas trees back after Christmas, and then people wanted to bring brush to me.”

Steve found that it made economic sense to buy his own grinder, and the business took off from there.

Lazy J takes Christmas trees back for free, regardless of where they were purchased.

“It’s a good thing to do,” Steve said. “I want to see the Christmas tree industry be recyclable.”

For more about Lazy J Tree Farm, call 360-457-5950, or visit lazyjtreefarm.com.

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Emily Matthiessen is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach her at emily.matthiessen@sequimgazette.com.