An old-fashioned Christmas, courtesy Wayne-N-Jean's Evergreens

Merry Christmas to all from Straight Talk with NDFB! In this episode, hosts Emmery Mehlhoff and Alisha Nord visit with Courtney Lesmeister, part-owner of Wayne-N-Jean's Evergreens. 

Courtney Lesmeister, friend of Alisha, married into a family owned and operated Christmas tree farm when she married Lloyd Lesmeister, son of Wayne and Jean, owners of Wayne-N-Jeans Evergreens. Courtney now works on the family tree farm along with Wayne and Jean, Lloyd, and two children.

Although the farm sells trees year-round, Wayne-N-Jean's is best known for their cut-your-own and pre-cut Christmas tree sales, wreaths, and gift shop. 

From the middle of November to Christmas Eve, Wayne-N-Jean's Evergreens is open for the public to choose and cut down a Christmas tree. The farm hosts several Christmas events including a visit from Santa Claus, the Grinch, Ladies Day, and much more! 

To find Wayne-N-Jean's Evergreens, visit

https://www.wjevergreens.com or find them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064651511013 . 

To contact Straight Talk with NDFB, email emmery@ndfb.org 

Transcript

[Straight Talk holiday theme]

[00:14] Emmery: Welcome to Straight Talk with NDFB. We are your hosts, Emmery Mehlhoff 

[00:18] Alisha: And Alisha Nord. 

[00:19] Emmery: We are your Farm Bureau duo, bringing you your competitive edge. Today, we talk to Alisha's friend Courtney Lesmeister. Courtney and her husband Lloyd are part owners of Wayne and Jean's Evergreens.

[00:33] Alisha: On today's episode, we talked about the ins and outs of how a Christmas tree farm works, the events they host for their customers, and Courtney's favorite part about being a Christmas tree farmer.

[00:44] Emmery: Join us for this episode. 

[Straight Talk holiday theme]

[00:52] Emmery: Today we have exciting guests for the season. We have Courtney Lesmeister with us today. She is from Morris, Minnesota, and she has a Christmas tree farm out there. And so we're visiting with her about everything that goes into that, so. Hi, Courtney. How are you today?

[01:10] Courtney: Hi. I'm good. Thanks for having me on.

[01:13] Emmery: First, start by telling us a little bit about yourself and about your Christmas tree farm and how you know Alisha.

[01:21] Courtney: Yes. Let's get into it. So, my name is Courtney Lesmeister, and I am from Morris, Minnesota. I am currently a busy mom of two. I got a two year old and eight month old, married my husband Lloyd back in 2020, and now I've married into a Christmas tree farm family. We're actually a year-round farm. So what that means is that we transplant trees year round. We're not just focusing on Christmas trees. So, yeah, our Christmas tree farm is called Wayne and Jean's Evergreens. We're located 3 miles north of Morris, Minnesota. And then how I know Alisha is show cattle days. Not currently in the show cattle world, but how I met Alisha was through my uncle Matt, I guess, and her husband Dan. And then Lloyd went to college with Alisha's brother Luke.

[02:08] Alisha: Oh wow! I forgot about that.

[02:09] Emmery: Yeah. Small world.

[02:09] Courtney: Yeah.

[02:11] Alisha: Emmery and I were trying to think of what podcasts to do before Christmas and just kind of doing something small and simple. And we were coming up with all these random ideas, and we're, eh, nothing's really biting, and we're like, what about a Christmas tree farm? That's exciting.

[02:27] Courtney: That's perfect. Yeah.

[02:28] Alisha: So we're super excited to have you on. So, do you want to just tell us a little bit...I know so, this is your husband's family's Christmas tree farm, correct?

[02:38] Courtney: Correct. So, yes, Wayne and Jean is actually my in laws, so it'd be my husband's parents, and they started the Christmas tree farm back in 1995, so the year I was born and started selling Christmas trees in the year 2000. And they've been building this wonderful business ever since. They've put a lot of work into it, and now I'm just lucky enough to get to be a part of it. Marrying into the family. Lloyd and I are now moving into the part ownership of the tree farm.

[03:06] Alisha: That's awesome. So where did you go to college? And did you have future plans of working somewhere else, or did you see yourself going working on the tree farm? Kind of tell us about what your future plans were after college.

[03:19] Courtney: Yeah. So I went to school, actually, in Valley City, North Dakota. Played a couple years of basketball, and then finished out my four year degree in exercise science. I had zero plans of coming back. I'm originally from Hancock, Minnesota, which is 8 miles from Morris. I grew up on a crop farm, so my dad was soybean and corn farmer with the market hogs on the side. I knew a lot about the agriculture world, and I just always thought that was what farmers were. And then fast forward to 2017. Excuse me. I moved back after college. Just family is kind of everything for me. And obviously my mom and dad are here, and both sets of my grandparents are around, so I knew being back here in the Hancock area is where I wanted to be. I've actually known Lloyd since I was super little. We were in 4-H together. Kind of ignored each other all throughout 4-H, and then love connected us, I guess, in 2017. Lloyd and I got married in 2020, and that's kind of how we entered the tree farm world.

[04:20] Alisha: So did you work prior to starting with the tree farm, or how did you decide that that was the route you wanted to go?

[04:28] Courtney: Yeah, I did. So I was a physical education and health teacher for four years, and then this is actually my first year that I'm not at a full-time job. I've committed to the tree farm. I absolutely loved being in the school setting, but when you own a business, you kind of just want to put 100% into your business, what you're growing, what you're doing, educating everybody about what you're doing. So, no, I had no intentions of never not working a full-time job, but being a business owner kind of opened my eyes to the possibilities of the future here.

[05:01] Alisha: So I just noticed I keep catching myself calling it a Christmas tree farm. Do you guys get that often, or is that an annoyance for you since you did say that you sell more than just Christmas trees?

[05:15] Courtney: No, we do get that during this season. It's like, yeah, that's what we are. We are a Christmas tree farm from November 1 until December 25. That's our main purpose. We park the tree spade trucks, and our focus is Christmas. But no. Year round, we do transplant. Well, I shouldn't say year round. January to March, April is kind of our quiet season, and then we get into planting our own trees and then transplanting. The guys are trucking and doing all sorts of things other than Christmas trees. So we do have all of the oaks and the maples and the willows and a bunch of different trees out in the fields.

[05:53] Alisha: So who all is involved at the farm? Is it lots of family, or do you guys employ other people?

[05:59] Courtney: So it is Wayne and Jean, the ones that initially started the farm, and then they welcomed aboard me and Lloyd, so we kind of keep us four, and then in the summer, we do hire a couple of high school kids to come out and help us water or shear or those smaller jobs that they're able to help with.

[06:16] Alisha: So it truly is a family-run business.

[06:19] Courtney: Yep, it is. Yes.

[06:21] Alisha: So before Lloyd and you decided to partner, who were the helpers, I mean, or was it just Wayne and Jean? Did they take all the roles under their wing?

[06:33] Courtney: It was, I mean, Wayne and Jean primarily, for sure. Lloyd ended up going to NDSU for four years for his animal science degree, moved out to South Dakota for a while, worked for some hog operation out there, decided it wasn't for him, and then he came back to the area. But, yeah, primarily for a while, it was just Wayne and Jean. Growing up, Lloyd has a younger sister, Kayla. Lloyd and Kayla were always helping out around the tree farm when they were in elementary and high school. So, yeah, Wayne and Jean are definitely the backbone of Wayne-N-Jean's Evergreens.

[07:03] Alisha: So what is your role at the farm?

[07:07] Courtney: My role at the tree farm was you know kind of a little bit of everything. They call me the Christmas coordinator because I like to plan events and extra things around the tree farm. When it's not Christmas season, I'm always thinking about what we can be doing during Christmas season, what we're going to add next year. I'm scrolling through Pinterest, and I'm looking. I'm like, oh, let's put that up at the pit farm. Oh, this is a great idea. Just always thinking Christmas. But in the summer, I love to be on the mower. I help plant, I help shear, I help pick pine cones. The guys really got bold this year and taught me how to drive the tractor and planter and the skid loader, and it's been so fun just expanding in that department, too. The guys are like, all right, Courtney, hop in the tractor. Go do this. Or hop in the bobcat. Move this. And it's awesome. They trust me. And I'm just really excited to be more part of the tree farm.

[07:56] Emmery: Just curious about how some of the operations on the tree farm work. Are you transplanting a lot of those trees as seedlings? Here when we plant, like, long shelter belts and tree rows, they come in as seedlings from NRCs or we buy them locally or whatever, then we put them in. They're not much taller than a foot. Are you getting all those seedlings in or are you guys starting them yourself?

[08:19] Courtney: So the guys have actually started ordering trees for next spring already and we buy them. I want to say they're called T-2. So that means they're two years old and they come and they're maybe a foot and a half tall. And we go through and we do a lot of interseeding because at our tree farm, during the Christmas tree season, we give people just the opportunity to go through the lots and cut down whatever tree they find. That's the perfect height, size, width that they want. And we don't go out and tag and price trees like a lot of the tree farms do. So that means we just have to go through and interseed a lot of trees. So the guys always say that we try to plant two trees for every tree that's cut down. So when we get those babies in the spring, they are like a two year old tree. We go through, we get on our hands and knees for all that inner plantings and then go from there.

[09:09] Emmery: How many years does it take for a tree to get from seedling status to something somebody would want in their living room?

[09:16] Courtney: Right. We like to say eight years. These last three years have been really tough. No rain. And the drought that we've been going through in the summer, trees just, they don't grow when it's dry like that. So like all of our seedlings that we're getting in the ground, we're trying to get them watered as best as we can, but if they survive, they just maintain they're not going to try and get bigger and bigger and bigger. So a lot of those six foot trees are now probably taken almost ten years to get where they need to be. But on good rain years, good growing years. A six foot tree takes about eight years.

[09:47] Emmery: Wow. I mean, in the agriculture world, we're used to planting things and then waiting for them to grow. And typically the longest time that we have to wait out here in the crop world is, I suppose if you plant winter wheat or rye, then you're waiting all throughout the winter and then for the spring. So like what, six, seven months tops. But ten years, that's a long time too. You have to....

[10:13] Courtney: I know.

[10:13] Emmery: Think ahead. And that's really crazy.

[10:16] Courtney: Some of the first trees I helped plant, they're maybe 3 feet tall and that was already five, six years ago. So it's like, wow, it's just crazy. The turnaround time. And we actually planted some new acres this year with some evergreens. And I'm like, these aren't going to be ready to sell until my daughter is ten years old. And that's scary.

[10:34] Alisha: That's crazy.

[10:35] Courtney: It is crazy to think about. Yeah.

[10:37] Emmery: So then when Wayne and Jean started the farm, did they have evergreens there already or did they have to plant them and then wait ten years before they could start their business?

[10:48] Courtney: They started in '95 and then they planted trees right away. There was no evergreens there. 2000, when they first started selling Christmas trees, they actually brought them in from a tree farm. That's where Wayne actually got his idea of starting a tree farm from, was brought in from his tree farm and they actually sold them here just as pre-cuts. And then I'm not sure the exact year they were able to start selling their own evergreens.

[11:11] Emmery: So actually, my husband and I usually get our tree from Menards, which is we probably should grace the local florist shop here. But that's what we've done for the last few years. But I do remember when I was younger, when I was little, we went to a Christmas tree farm and dad brought his own chainsaw and he cut down the tree and we pulled it back and put it in the back of the pickup and off we went. And I remember that being such a magical experience and just really special. And the whole farm was all decked out with lights and there was hot chocolate and little mini marshmallows and the whole experience. So do you guys do something similar? Do you have events where people come and cut down trees or are they kind of just come when you want, it's always open. Or how do you guys do that?

[11:59] Courtney: The last two years, we've actually opened the weekend before Thanksgiving just to take a little stress off of that Black Friday and that first Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year we hosted Santa a couple of times that really brought out the families. It was so fun to see little kids so excited to see Santa. And then they got to run through the trees and help mom and dad pick out the perfect one. And we've been really lucky with great weather this year. I know it's weird not to have a white Christmas, but man, I mean, when kids can come out in just sweatshirts and jeans or just their winter coats and not freeze while they're waiting outside. It's been awesome. So Santa a couple of times this year, and then the Grinch has made a couple of appearances and then we've hosted quite a few field trips. I want to say we've had four or five classes out for field trips. I did my first ever Ladies Day event. I brought in a bunch of different vendors and set them up like in our precut Christmas trees. Ladies got to come out and build their porch pots and then shop the vendors, shop our gift shop. And that was just loads of fun. I had a coffee trailer and everything out there. But, yeah, that's something that we're always working on is just what events we want to add. What's going to draw people from farther away? What's the next thing?

[13:10] Alisha: So where do most of your customers come from?

[13:13] Courtney: Surrounding areas. We've had so many people coming from North and South Dakota this year that it's just been so awesome. The amount of people that come down from Fargo. We have college friends that come out from the middle of North Dakota and visit us in Morris just to get their Christmas tree. It's a lot of the surrounding communities that we pull customers from.

[13:33] Emmery: How many customers would you say that you typically have, particularly for that Christmas season? Are you ever just kind of worried that you're going to get so many or you're going to lose all your trees or do you have more than enough supply for the demand that you have?

[13:48] Courtney: Right now I think we're sitting okay with the size of trees that we have that we haven't had the worry of. Like, oh, my gosh, what are we going to do? But I couldn't even give you a number of how many Christmas trees we sell. I probably should know that, but I don't. Yeah, like I said, we're sitting pretty good. We're able to sell ten to twelve foot Christmas trees, which a lot more people are looking for that size of a Christmas tree than you would think. Yeah, a lot of people come to us because they know we have bigger trees like that.

[14:15] Alisha: So what is your favorite part about being a Christmas tree farmer? Like, what is the highlight for you?

[14:21] Courtney: The highlight for me is seeing families coming out, making those core memories, running through the trees, cutting down their tree, dragging their tree up. It's always my favorite when dad gets down and he cuts down the tree and the kids are jumping around and they're so excited because it falls over and then dad has to stand up and drag the tree all the way up to the shop, and the kids are just running behind it because they're so excited. And then once they get their tree up there, we actually shake the tree. And that's usually a highlight for a lot of the kids, too, is just to see their tree on the shaker. And we're always like, well, you better hope a squirrel doesn't pop out. We've never had one, but it could be the time. Yeah. Just being a part of those family memories and meeting so many new people and then having the repeat customers, the ones that have been there. I mean, I'm sure if you ask Wayne and Jean, they've seen some of these people 23 years, so it's just really cool that people continue those traditions and make magic out of Christmas.

[15:12] Alisha: So does it ever get overwhelming for you being a mom, especially now with two littles? Christmas is busy no matter what. But with your guys'family operation, do you ever feel like you're missing out on Christmas things because you're so busy with your actual business, or have you just come, like, this is our norm, like, this is going to be our Christmas memories is here at the tree farm?

[15:39] Courtney: I don't think so. Lloyd and I, we always make the point. We always want to go down and cut down a tree. So Lloyd and I go pick out a tree, cut it down, and then obviously, we have my daughter, Ellary and Cade be a part of that and get to bring that home. With the support system we have, like, my parents being so close, grandparents, Wayne, and Jean. They always have our back. If I need to go get my Christmas shopping done, they're like, "No problem. We'll take the kids. We'll cover the shop. You go do what you got to do." And I just made it a point, and Lloyd, too, we make it a point that we started elf on the shelf this year for Ellary. Is she super into it at two years old? No, but it's something that I want to have for next year and the year after so that she does get that Christmas magic, because she is providing that Christmas magic for so many other people just being a part of that tree farm that we still want to create those memories for her, too, and Cade. And we try not to slack, but obviously, there's some nights we come home and we're just exhausted. But I think we're doing an okay job of keeping Christmas traditions alive.

[16:38] Alisha: And honestly, I feel like they're probably more spoiled than the rest of the kids because they get to see it a lot more. They get to see all the fun and the excitement, and they probably see Santa a lot more and all just the fun things that come with Christmas too.

[16:54] Emmery: Right?

[16:54] Courtney: Right. Yeah. I mean, not many kids get to say, yeah, Santa was at my house, right? Or the Grinch. She could give two stinks about Santa. But the Grinch came to the farm, and she was so excited. I made a Facebook post one time. We actually went to shopping somewhere, and I can't remember, and my mom was with, and she told Ellary, like, okay, you can pick out one toy. Well, here comes Ellary with a stuffed Grinch. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, we're a Christmas tree farm. You can't be a Grinch lover. What are we doing here? But, yeah, she loves the Grinch, so she was so excited to see that at the farm. And the Grinch had a dog named Max, so that was even better.

[17:38] Alisha: That's so sweet. So, as far as the future of the farm, do you guys, you and Lloyd or Wayne and Jean, are there any goals for the farm?

[17:47] Courtney: Our goal is just continuing to educate of what goes into growing Christmas trees. Obviously, the goal of any business is to keep growing, to keep finding those new customers. And we're always thinking of, what can we add next? What can we do next to better our business, better ourselves? What can we do to make it a better experience for our customers? We have people driving three-plus hours. We want to give them an experience. When they come to the farm, we're always thinking of, like, what can we do to make it a better experience? We know they're enjoying themselves now, but what's that next step we can take to make it an even more memorable experience for them?

[18:24] Emmery: I believe a few more days left for people to pick up a Christmas tree from your farm, if they don't have one already. Even thinking about next year, can you give us a little bit of information about how we can find your farm and where we can find information on all of the not only Christmas trees, but other trees that you guys provide?

[18:46] Courtney: Yeah. So our Facebook page has grown immensely. That's one of my duties, is figuring out social media and websites and all that fun stuff so you can find us on Facebook, Wayne N Jeans Evergreens. We do have a website, wjevergreens.com, and then, yeah, Facebook. I do have an Instagram account. Facebook or our website is mostly our information related stuff.

[19:10] Emmery: Well, thanks so much, Courtney, for joining Alisha and I today and sharing about your Christmas tree farm. It really is such a novel idea for me, just being out in more kind of the Valley city area where there really isn't anything like that, it's just really cool what you guys are doing in the tree world and the agricultural world and making that a family business and bringing the joy of Christmas not only to your family but to so many others. And so, yeah, it's been really enjoyable to visit with you today. And thank you for joining us. Just for future reference, is your summer business, you guys mostly do, I suppose people aren't cutting trees down, so are you mostly selling to nurseries and things like that?

[19:56] Courtney: No, mostly customer base. So we do a lot of like somebody wants a whole grove. So they'll contact us in January and they'll order all their bare roots. That way we can make sure we can get the varieties and types that they want and then they can come and grab them in May, get them planted and they're ready to rock all summer. Otherwise we have trees that are 15-18 years old that the guys transplant. We have four spade trucks, so we have the two smaller ones and then two larger spade trucks. And basically they can go in and transplant trees up to, I want to say, twelve inches in diameter. That's most of our business actually, is the transplanting services.

[20:38] Emmery: So my dad, his Christmas present to himself this year was a tree mover, I suppose it'd be a tree spade truck. And he seriously has been like, I'll come to the farm one day and there'll just be a random tree, like somewhere I've never seen it. There's like three or four whole new tree rows around our property, and it's like okay, we're getting a little carried away.

[21:01] Courtney: Right? Yeah, we've heard of a couple of people, they just bought a tree spade because they want to do their own job and then they try to sell the tree spade again. But yeah, we try to stick within that...I mean, Wayne did a job out in Oakes, North Dakota, one time, the furthest we've been, but we try to stay in that 50-mile radius.

[21:20] Emmery: Thanks again, Courtney, and Merry Christmas to you and Wayne and Jean and Lloyd, and your awesome business.

[21:27] Alisha: Yes, thank you for coming on. This was awesome. Thank you so much.

[21:32] Courtney: No problem. Thank you so much. Merry Christmas.

[Straight Talk holiday theme]

[21:46] Emmery: You've been listening to straight talk with NDFB. To check out Wayne N Jean's Evergreens, see the show notes below. To contact Alisha and I, email us at emmery@ndfb.org.

[Straight Talk holiday theme]