ountry C
Friday, December 17, 2021
cres A
Volume 8, Edition 35
Focusing on Today’s Rural Environment
A Christmas
Warzechas grow trees for every type of customer BY CHRISTINE BEHNEN STAFF WRITER
R
OYALTON – Christmas trees are as alike to each other as one person’s Christmas is alike to another’s. They are alike in spirit, and yet, they are each entirely unique. A Christmas tree is not just a tree. It is special because of what it represents. Rick and Rosie Warzecha of Wee Trees near Royalton
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Publications bli ti The newspaper of today is the history of tomorrow.
sell Christmas trees. They have been growing them for coming toward 40 years. Their farm is full of row after row of green trees. There are thousands of trees on their 50 acres. There are new seedlings barely surfacing above the snow, and there are grand old trees towering high. There are trees, and more trees, and more trees. They may have at one time, long ago in the beginning, imagined that one Christmas tree might do as well as anoth-
This month in the
experience
er, but today they think otherwise. Way back in the beginning, Rick got the idea to grow Christmas trees. His father had owned a farm by Rice and planted thousands of trees as windbreaks. Around 1969, Rick asked his father about growing some of the trees as Christmas trees. “Then it was more about just getting Christmas trees,” Rick said. But it wasn’t until 1983
COUNTRY: Watch for the next edition of Country Acres on Jan. 15, 2022
7
Short days, long winter evenings Diane Leukam column
9
“We led two lives” Cyrus
that Rick and Rosie planted the first trees of what was to eventually become Wee Trees. The land that is now covered in trees had been a cornfield. Then, it looked nothing like what it would come to be. In 1989, they build their house and moved to their soon-to-be evergreen farm. In 1991, 2,000 fir trees took to the earth, establishing what is currently the bough
PHOTO COURTESY OF RULE CREATIVE CO.
The Warzecha family of Wee Trees has been growing Christmas trees since 1983 on their farm near Royalton. Pictured are Rosie and Rick Warzecha (from left), Lucas Barber, Natasha Barber, Neil Maidl and Ryan Warzecha.
Warzechas page 2
12 Christmas Q&As With our Advertisers
23 Polly Vaughn Nancy Leasman column
14 Kayaking the mighty Mississippi Paynesville
24 Life on the Euerle farm Litchfield
19 Coming full circle Grove City
25 Country cooking Albany
