Working at a Christmas Tree Farm

Dec. 25, 2005 — -- For most of us, Christmas trees are a purely seasonal treat. But for the Christmas tree farmers who supply us with all those beautiful spruces, it's an entire year's worth of hard work.

"It's a year-round business," said Lindey Edwards, whose father-in-law, Jim Edwards, owns and operates the Maple Row Tree Farm in Easton, Conn. "We have a staff here. They have to prune the trees, mow, plant the ones that they cut down. It's a complete year-round thing."

Marysol Castro of "Good Morning America Weekend Edition" tried her hand at the Christmas tree business by spending a day at the Maple Row Tree Farm with the Edwards family. This farm doesn't just sell Christmas trees, it lets customers chop their own.

Before Castro could help the customers, she had to learn how to cut down the trees. They don't use chain saws at the Maple Row Tree Farm, but instead cut with manual saws. Luckily for Castro, she had Scott Edwards, Jim Edwards' son, as a teacher. He showed her how to tie up the tree for transport. Then he handed her some work clothes and she was off to help a family from Long Island.

"This is a Douglas fir. You can tell by the way the needles are positioned just so," Castro told her customers as she helped them select which tree out of the thousands they should cut. "And it's very tall. You've got a lot of room on top to put an angel or a star."

A rookie herself, Castro even gave the family instructions on sawing.

"It's really on the pull side that you're doing the cutting," she said.

Finally, the tree came down. Castro did a great job as a Christmas tree saleswoman, but she had to draw the line somewhere.

"Merry Christmas! And I'm not taking it to your car," she said.