Thy leaves are so unchanging

Longtime Moses Lake Christmas tree sellers return to lot

MOSES LAKE - This holiday season some Columbia Basin residents will get their Christmas trees from a familiar face.

Lee McIntyre first began in the business by working for the grower who still raises his trees today, starting when he was 13 years old at Banks, Ore.

"Worked for him on his Christmas tree farm pretty much year-round; I'd either prune trees or work in the harvest or plant trees or whatever it might be - fertilize, do weeds and different things," he said.

McIntyre's parents first moved to Moses Lake in 1979, when his father worked as maintenance supervisor and helped build what is now Weyerhaeuser. He remained in Banks to complete his senior year.

"When I graduated, I got married and decided to move up here to help Dad build his house and be closer to family," he said.

They began selling Christmas trees when McIntyre's oldest son was 1 year old.

"It's not about making money, it's really not, because we won't make much money," he said. "When we started doing it, there weren't any trees in town."

So he called the grower in Banks to ask the chance of getting some trees.

"He said, 'Come on down,'" he recalled. "So that's how it got started. So it became a community service, and it was fun. My whole family enjoyed it. My folks, my brother and his family, my little kids and we had friends involved who were just having a blast. We really believed it was like a community service."

If one took a poll of the people who purchased trees from the lot over the years, Lee believes many were repeat customers.

For about 14 years, Lee's Trees was located at the Patton Park Grocery Store at the former Larson Air Force Base, then moved to Wheeler Road for several years.

"My family had grown up, they decided that was enough," McIntyre said. "We quit selling at that point for a while. We'd still go down to Oregon to get trees for close friends, just a pickup load here and there."

Two years ago, McIntyre remarried, and his family had interest in reviving the lot.

"So we tried my front yard down in Cascade Valley, and the location was poor - not very many people knew we were there," he said. "We basically ended up losing our shirt."

Last year, McIntyre went back to just doling out trees for close friends and customers who tracked him down.

Lee's Trees reopened Saturday at Cascade Valley Grocery, located at 8034 Valley Road N.E.

"It's just a thrill," McIntyre said. "I would love to see all 500 just go, because I know all 500 of those trees are going to be appreciated and people are going to have the best they can get."

A portion of the proceeds will go to Animal Outreach, and a donation box will be present for food. Free coffee and cocoa will be offered.

The company donates a tree to any Christian church wanting one for their congregation.

"It's amazing how excited people get about their tree," Lee said. "It's a blast to watch them. There's women who will come in there and spend literally two hours picking out a tree, and sometimes men. But the kids just have a blast, running around in between trees."

McIntyre said larger tree companies begin cutting earlier and pile them when they harvest them.

"If they're wet when they cut them, and they bale them and pile them, they cook on the inside just like a bale of hay or a pile of grass; they get hot," he said. "And that's not good for the trees. When we cut them, I can tell you the day they're cut."

The biggest thing is to make sure a resident has the humidity in his or her house with a little moisture, Lee recommends, making sure it never gets too warm.

He also recommends taking a nail or drill to the tree's sapwood right inside the bark, where it draws up its water.

"Making sure they never run out of water," he said. "If they run out one time, you're in trouble. They'll seal up and they won't take water again, unless you take them out of the stand, cut them off again, and that's pretty much it."

Lee said he has never heard of anyone in the area having their house burn down because of a dried out Christmas tree, but he takes pride in the way he cuts his trees.

McIntyre cuts every tree, and estimates he's cut about 6,700 Christmas trees over the years.

"We don't get them in the mud, because it's almost always muddy, we do our very best not to break branches and we bale them," he said. "We haul them, and there's different things about taking care of your tree."

McIntyre believes good moisture and a good frost are going to contribute for a perfect year for trees.

Occasionally, he must deal with theft of Christmas trees, and plans to stay on the site the whole time.

The company ties trees down for any customers who desire, and is offering delivery to anyone in Moses Lake for $5.

"It's interesting," Lee's son Jordan McIntyre said.

Lee's children would take broken tree boughs and make wreathes out of them or try to sell them.

"When the kids were tiny, there was people who would give them a good chunk of money for just a little pile because they thought it was so cute," Lee remembered with a laugh.

He started accompanying his father and selling Christmas trees at the age of 8 or 9.

"We could tell them anything just about that (Lee) could tell them about trees by that point," Jordan said.

Jordan started to accompany Lee down to Banks to pick up the trees when he was about 12.

"It's an experience, it's work," Jordan said. "You work for three days down there for 16 hours a day, and you're just going the whole time. It is a lot of fun. It's an experience more than it's moneymaking."

Lee estimated if he calculated his hours, he would be making about 50 cents an hour.

"The only thing I feel bad about is that I take business away from the Boy Scouts," he said. "That bothers me, or any other person that would be donating for a charitable (cause). That bothers me, I don't like that, but again, I know the quality I have and I know how excited people are to get our trees."

McIntyre said he has a lot of positive memories from his time selling Christmas trees.

"But the thing that thrills me the most is just seeing people light up," he said. "When they just light up as they're walking through, 'Oh look at this one!' 'I like this one, Dad, can we get this one?' It's just a blast. I think that's my overall favorite memory, is just to watch people just have a blast finding their tree. And the excitement the kids feel when you're loading the tree on top, they're bouncing around in their seats in the vehicle. To me, that's probably my favorite thing about it."

Lee's Trees operates every day from noon to 9 p.m. until the trees are gone.

For more information, call 509-750-8152.

Know your Christmas trees

MOSES LAKE - The Lee's Trees lot sells four different species of Christmas tree: grand fir, Douglas fir, Nordmann fir and noble fir.

Owner Lee McIntyre said the grand fir has the strongest scent, followed by the Douglas fir and the noble fir, while the Nordmann fir has almost no scent.

The grand fir is the most sensitive to drying out, followed by Douglas, noble and the Nordmann.

"The Nordmann almost won't lose needles and it will stay green-looking," McInytre said. "The noble is an awesome tree as well, as far as holding up. Those are some things people don't know."

The Douglas and grand firs grow faster, taking about five years before getting ready for harvest. A noble fir or a Nordmann fir typically takes seven years in the ground to be a 6-foot to 8-foot tree.

"So a lot more money goes into raising a noble or a Nordmann, and that's why they're more expensive," McIntyre said.

Growers are always looking for new seed sources, cross-pollinating and experimenting to upgrade the trees' durability, McIntyre added.

"The noble and the Nordmann, if you brought it into your house and took care of it properly this year with the kind of growing season we've had, you should be able to bring it in and have it in the house for a minimum of four weeks without having any problem," he said. "Douglas fir, three weeks, and the grand, about the same."