Wreath making is serious business. The main type of brush used is balsam fir. November is the beginning of the Christmas tree and wreath business here in Nova Scotia. Wreath wires come in multiple sizes; the main sizes are 14, 16, 24, 36, & 48 inches. The wreaths are made double sided, brush is put back to back on the wreath wire to make the wreath full.
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| Bailed Brush |
Typically you cut the branch off the tree and then bundle it
into piles. First the brush gets laid backside down half way; then the brush gets
reversed and the brush is piled front first on top of the other brush. After a
decent pile of brush is formed it gets bailed together with twine. Once at the
wreath site they get broken down into smaller packing pieces.
Usually you have
three people working the wreath workbench, a sniper, a packer,
and a wrapper. The wrapper uses a sewing machine type wheel that
wraps the baling wire around the brush and wreath wire. This process can also
be done by hand, which is how we are doing our wreaths.
We are working on an order of 100 16-inch wreaths; so far we
have 49 of them done. At first, we would snipe the brush into a few boxes and
then we’d put 4 or 5 wreaths together before we’d run out of brush. Today was a
rather warm day for November and the weather forecast isn’t great for the next day
of two with a cold front coming into the province. We decided to cut as much
brush as we could for the day, we had the tractor pull a wagon out to the field
where we were cutting so that we could place all of the brush into it without
having to go back and forth to the workshop.
We have been cutting brush in a different way then usual. We
don’t cut the branch off the tree but snipe smaller pieces off the branch that
are already prepared for packing eliminating one step in the process. It also
helps the tree product more brush for next years season of wreaths. We estimated
that the 25 boxes we produced during our day should make roughly 50 16-inch wreaths.
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| Sniping brush. |
I’ve never cut brush before, so this year it’s new for
me. While out in the balsam tree field I realized that while I was cutting
brush I felt very relaxed and calm. I enjoyed being out in the field surrounded
by nature. As the tractor was running a squirrel was sounding the alarm, the
occasional moo of a cow in the field across the river, the wind as it pushed
the trees, & the river running near me; it all felt serene and comforting.
The order we were doing was only a small part of a much larger order. It took us a while to figure out a routine that worked for us and by that time the larger order had already been filled. Later in the month Gordon went to help load the 2nd half of the larger order in the truck for delivery.
Now that the wreath season is over & we can collectively take a breath, I can look back at the new skills I'm beginning to learn.
