Real estate agent finds creative way to recycle Christmas trees
A local real estate agent by trade has found a way to help her clients out after a busy holiday season by taking their used Christmas trees off their hands to feed them to her goats.
JoAnn Echtler of Valencia owns a 20-acre farm called Bacon Acres. But the name is a bit misleading, because there are no pigs living at Bacon Acres, but there are goats, and they are hungry. For those who aren’t aware, goats like fir trees.
“It started around five years ago,” said Echtler. “A couple people called me and said ‘hey, I hear goats like Christmas trees.’ And they do have good anti-fungal against parasites. They do like them.”
Goats cannot have hemlock, but they can have most commercially grown fir trees.
And so, collecting Christmas trees for her goats became a yearly tradition.
The first year was just a couple trees being dropped off at the farm, but each year it has seemed to become a bigger and bigger process.
“The next year a couple people asked me to pick it up so it just sort of catapulted into a whole day,” said Echtler.
Echtler, along with her husband Bryan, now pick up the trees and take them back to the farm, but they are very careful about the trees given to their goats, and the needles given to the chickens.
Yes, there are chickens at Bacon Acres, there just aren’t any pigs. And chickens like the needles from fir trees.
But the only trees they can use are fresh-cut trees and none bought that may be treated first.
“(Some places) spray them with preservatives and we don’t know what they have sprayed them with, so we don’t want the animals getting that,” said Echtler.
Echtler said she is also thinking of her husband, because the number of trees has become overwhelming, and he handles the trees once they are back at the farm.
“Last year we ended up with 95 trees, some of them had been treated, so my husband either burns those or throws them in the lake on the property,” said Echtler. “He was still trying to get rid of trees in March and April.”
To save time, and her husband’s back, the Echtlers have decided they will no longer accept treated trees.
“You know, I don’t want to get divorced,” said Echtler, with a laugh.
With the new process, clients and people in the community are sent a form to request tree pickup. In the form, they are asked where they got their tree, to ensure the safety of the three goats and 15 chickens.
“We remind them the day before pickup that we’re coming and that again, we are only taking the fresh-cut trees,” said Echtler.
Where last year the process took all day, the Echtlers are hoping this year pick up day on Jan. 8 will only take five to six hours.
“Last year it took us 12 hours with three people. I have to keep this man happy. He does too much work for me,” said Echtler, again with a laugh.
In addition to collecting trees, Echtler offers clients many events at the farm throughout the year, just to thank them for their business.
“We do an Easter egg hunt, a barbecue in the summer and an appreciation thing in the fall,” said Echtler.
Clients and their families get the chance to bring their kids who can feed the goats and get eggs out of the chicken house.
“We give the kids a chance to do things they don’t normally get to do,” said Echtler.
There is kindness and a sense of family within the community of Echtler’s clients. And her husband Bryan is right by her side for all of it.
