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Christmas Planning with Fox Tree Farms

Here in , the Christmas season is upon us. The few leaves fighting the winter’s chill dot otherwise bare trees, and the sight of decorations coming up around houses means one thing: the holiday season is approaching! For many of us, no holiday season would be complete without a Christmas tree.

As part of her work with the Upper Shore Harvest Directory, Jackie Petito visited Fox Tree Farms for an interview with owner Larry Engle, who let her in on a few of his secrets for growing large, beautiful Christmas trees. It seems Mr. Engle’s biggest trick is attention to detail:

“I go around all my trees and tie the leaders up straight [with bamboo sticks] so that just about all my trees will have a nice straight leader to put the angel or the star on…That’s what I like to do, so I spend a lot of time fine-tuning mine.”

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Mr. Engle also carefully plans out how he grows his trees. “Whenever we sell a tree I will plant a seedling right next to it rather than having a thousand trees all eight foot high. You see I have all different sizes mixed. It helps in many ways…it gives you room to work around them. People in my fields can see the tree; they can walk around the tree.”

Mr. Engle also let us in on some tips for selecting and maintaining a Christmas tree: “These are white pine…they hold their needles fairly well. Its needles, you can see, are about two and a half, three inches long, so depending on your taste for decorations you may not be able to display a lot of ornaments quite as well as on a longer needle tree. But it is a popular tree, a lot of customers just like to put a garland on them and a few decorations. You can hang bulbs on it, but these limbs aren’t as stiff and heavy as a Scotch pine, so you can’t put real heavy ornaments on it.” He also tells us how to care for our tree once we’ve selected the perfect one: “If you bring it home with you and you’re not going to put it up for a week or two, put it in the shade in a place that’s not windy, and put water to it. It will draw water for a couple of weeks.”

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Fox Tree Farms offers a fun experience for people of all ages. Customers can choose to cut their own tree (although they must provide their own saw), or ask for the Fox Tree Farms staff to do the cutting. There are also carts available, which Fox Tree Farm staff will use to drive trees to customers’ cars. The friendly staff will also help customers tie their trees to their cars. As Christmas approaches and we look to decorating our house, Larry Engle looks at his rows of trees and knows that he has something for every family who stops by.

If you’re interested, contact him at  or email: . Fox Tree Farms is open: weekends in December from 9 am to 4:30 pm at 313 Fox Meadow Road, Queen Anne, MD 21657.

An Interview with Breezy Run Farm

Check out our interview with Vicky Meyer of Breezy Run Farm, located in Church Hill, Maryland.

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VICKY MEYER: I’m Vicky Meyer and this is Breezy Run Farm which we purchased in 1999.  My husband was retiring and he had a pharmacy and we were looking for something to invest in and we always liked farms and I’ve always liked the outdoors, my daughter was into riding. I’d managed the community stable over where my house is in Annapolis, so we took the plunge and bought this facility.

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EMILY: What brought you to the Eastern Shore of Maryland?

VICKY: Well, we had looked all around and I don’t know that we were particularly looking for the Eastern Shore but it certainly is convenient from Annapolis, and once we came over here we fell in love with the people.  I was so taken aback by just the neighbors, just the friendliness, I needed some hay, and I heard there was a cow farmer down the road that did it, and I went in with my old van and he started laughing at me, and I said “what’s wrong?” and he said “You see that old truck there? You need something you come and you get it and let me know what you had.” I thought gee that’s amazing, but I have found that kind of warmth with the people over here and I just, I dearly love the people.

EMILY: So what else do you do here besides horse boarding?

VICKY: We do quite a bit, we do boarding, we have done quite a bit of breeding, I had to learn that. I’m a nurse by trade so in terms of the shots, the foaling out, that comes sort of naturally, and in helping some of the vets, so we have certainly done a lot of breeding. We have boarded even young foals, and raised some for some folks along with ours. We do a lot of horse shows, well, not a lot but certainly horse shows, all varieties. Clinics, lessons, we host the Interscholastic Equestrian Association middle school and high school for the area. We have hay production, straw, soybeans and we have a vineyard that we’ve started and hopefully we’ll have some grapes next year to make wine, we’ve sort of diversified.

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EMILY: Is there anything else you’d like to highlight about what you’ve been doing here?

Vicky: Well one of the very interesting things that you never know what’s going to happen is about a year and a half ago I got a call, no it was an email, something about the world trade center and they had a delegation they wanted to bring from Iraq, lo and behold the state department brought a group of Iraqis here, entrepreneurs, and that was sort of a highlight, I’ve learned so much, and since I was recalled from Desert Storm, I’m actually retired Navy as well, It just was full circle for me, I just learned so much from them, the woman spoke fluent english, and I really enjoyed the visit.  You never know what’s going to happen, even here on the Eastern Shore, I said “Why did you pick my horse farm?” and they said “We just liked it” and certainly we’re involved with the Maryland Horse Council, and things like that.

To see what is currently going on at Breezy Run Farm, check out their website and click their on “Events and Lessons” page! A schooling show, dressage clinic, and Western Regionals are all coming up soon.

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This interview was conducted by Emily Scherer, an intern with Washington College’s Geographic Information Systems lab, on behalf of the Upper Shore Regional Council.

Cafetin Coffee

As rewarding as it is to eat local, it can be difficult to find local sources of some of your favorite foods and drinks.  Finding local coffee in Maryland is not an easy task. What’s a locavore caffeine addict to do?!

Although coffee beans do not grow locally, the Upper Shore Region is not without coffee roasters.  We were very excited to get to know Cafetin Coffee. This small company in Chestertown is run by Tim O’Brien, an award-winning coffee grower. He started growing green coffee in 2004 and has been roasting his own coffee since 2012.

We met Tim at Evergrain Bread Company, one of the places where his coveted beans are available for purchase.  We sat at one of their inviting tables and listened as he told us his amazing life story and how he eventually became a coffee roaster in Chestertown.

It all started in Costa Rica in 2003, when Tim, a Peace Corps alum, was working in international development. His experience gave him firsthand knowledge of how the low coffee prices negatively affected the local people, and he was inspired to do something about it. That’s how Cafetin, which is a name for a small coffee break, started.

Tim didn’t have to wait long for success: his coffee was named the 5th best coffee in the nation in 2009. After working as a producer, exporter, importer, green coffee buyer and roaster, Tim clearly knows what it takes to produce a great cup of coffee.

Of course, after hearing the fascinating story behind Tim’s coffee, we had to try a cup ourselves. We can certainly agree with the International “Cup of Excellence” Jury: that coffee definitely deserves its title!

As wonderful as Cafetin Coffee is, it is hard to believe that they’re just getting started. This is a business worth following, as Tim plans to expand Cafetin’s offerings in the near future. Look for his delicious, ethically sourced, and locally roasted coffee at Evergrain Bread Company, the Chestertown Farmers’ Market, or online at www.cafetincoffee.com.