Jingle all the way to Kaleidoscope Farms

“Jingle-bells, Jingle-bells, Jingle all the way,

 Oh, what fun it is to ride a one-horse open sleigh…”

“Wait, mom, wait. What is a one-horse open sleigh?”

“Oh, well, I think it means that one horse is pulling a sleigh with an open top.”

“Oh, OK."

“O'er the fields we go, laughing all the way

Bells on bobtail ring…”

 “Mom, what is a bellsonbob-tail?”

“Ummm…Well…Uh…I’m not really sure. You know what, let’s load up and go to Kaleidoscope Farms, I bet they’ll know there. They have horses and a sleigh with bells.”

 “Alright mom, that sounds great!”

 

Kaleidoscope Farms offers all of the charm of an old fashioned Christmas, complete with a horse drawn open sleigh when the snow falls and bells ringing on their bobbed tails. The country charm is easy to see in the beautiful rural Hancock county setting for the farm and the rows of carefully manicured Christmas trees spreading out in every direction. After a pleasant winter stroll, guests are welcome to warm up in the cozy, wood-fired warm gift shop. There are ample shopping options along with hand made wreaths and greens, home baked cookies and cinnamon rolls and complimentary hot cider. And this year, for the first time, the Lima Beane Men’s Barbershop Chorus will be strolling the fields and performing at the farm on Sunday Dec. 2 to add an additional element of Christmas cheer.

“We want the people who take time to come out here and share the holidays with our family to find the wonderful Christmas atmosphere they usually can only sing about in all of the old Christmas carols,” said Dave Reese, owner of Kaleidoscope Farms. “Out here they won’t find a shopping mall or a traffic jam, just a simple country Christmas experience on the farm. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate and we’ll even have some snow for the horses to pull the sleigh.”

Kaleidoscope Farms offers 10 varieties of fir, pine and spruce trees, dug trees, tree delivery and plenty of decorations to Deck the Halls. Celebrate the First Noel this year with a White Christmas in the Winter Wonderland at the farm complete with Jingle Bells, Silver Bells, the Holly and the Ivy, and plenty of fun Christmas tunes sung in true barbershop style.

Christmas tree crop strong despite the drought

The Kaleidoscope Farms Christmas 2012 tree crop is looking great despite the challenging drought this summer.

The sale-sized trees have deep, well-developed root systems that help them overcome short-term drought conditions experienced in much of Ohio this year.

“The trees weathered the drought just fine and the late rains through the fall have rehydrated the soils and the trees are doing really well,” said Dave Reese, owner of Kaleidoscope Farms just north of Mt. Cory. “If the dry conditions would have persisted through the fall we would have been concerned about trees being too dry, but the wet weather in the last couple of months really took care of that concern.”

The large trees are just fine, but the young trees on the farm suffered significantly in the dry conditions. A substantial portion of the trees planted last spring and the spring of 2011 died in the drought.

“Unfortunately we lost quite a few of our youngest trees to the drought this year,” Reese said. “We will have to make up for the losses by planting more, older seedling in the next couple of years. The drought was very tough on us, but it really did not have much effect on the trees that we will be selling this year. In fact, we may have the best crop of trees we have ever had for sale this year.”

Whether in a dry year or a more normal year, Reese does advise putting the fresh cut trees into water as soon as possible after bringing them home from the farm. They will take up a surprising amount of water, especially in the first few days.

For questions, contact Reese at 419-722-1154 or visit Kaleidoscopefarms.com.