I recently completed my annual trip to Oregon to help the Wood Mountain Christmas Tree organization ship natural trees and tree products to fundraising groups in California and Arizona. My good friends Randy and Denise Wood own the Wood Mtn business, and they are good friends of both Charlie and I. Basically, Wood Mtn works with charities who pre-sell the Christmas trees and/or “greens” (wreaths, swags, and garland) to their donors, allowing the charitable group (usually a school booster group) to make some money, and for the donor to acquire a super-fresh, high-quality Christmas tree or decoration in the process.
A lot of people are involved in bringing these products to market. The tree grower, Angel Guerrero, leases many plots of land in Oregon where he raises several types of trees: Douglas Fir, Grand Fir, Noble Fir, and Nordman Fir. The trees grow about 1 foot per year, with most trees sold in the 5-6′ through 8-9′ heights, although Wood Mtn does ship some larger trees to a few customers. Angel’s crews harvest the trees, load them into trucks, bring them to the shipping lot, and then stack them by type and size.
The trees then have to be tagged with Wood Mtn tags, which are color-codes by type and height.
Then, the trees need to be loaded into the 53′ trailers. Angel’s workers use elevators to get them into the trailers, and other workers pack them tight in the trailer compartment. This goes on for three days, rain or shine, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., until all 23 semi tractor-trailer loads are complete.
Angel has several crews of Hispanic laborers who do the heavy lifting. The workers are small in stature, but wiry and strong, and have a cheerful attitude while doing this very hard labor. I’m sure most of them are illegals, but…they are doing some extremely exhausting labor that very few Caucasian men would put up with for very long.
The Wood Mtn crew consisted of Randy Wood, our jefe, myself, Randy’s son Kyle Wood, and another fellow named James Tardy. The four of us have worked together for several years. Randy’s brother Joe Wood also joined us this year. To be truthful, the week-long trip is a male-bonding experience, a frat party without the music, dames, and booze. We enjoy each others’ company, the camaraderie, the food, and the goofing off. This year, James entertained us with the drone(s) that he purchased and attempted to fly (in the motel room!). He and Kyle eventually got pretty good at piloting the thing out at the tree assembly lot.
This is Randy Wood and the grower, Angel Guerrero.
Here’s a photo of our crew (minus Joe) plus one of Angel’s laborers.
Our crew’s job is to make sure that the 13,000 trees that are being loaded are properly tagged and are of good quality, and that each “drop” within the trailer load is properly marked and the contents of the drop are correct in number and type of tree and in the number of greens (wreaths, swags, garlands) that were ordered. Each drop is separated by a sign designating the charity/booster group that will be offloading the trailer down in California and Arizona.
My primary job is to make sure that Kyle, James and Joe have all the tools they need to process each truck load, and to make sure that each of the 23 truck drivers has his proper instructions and documentation before he leaves the assembly lot. My secondary job is to assist Randy by running errands, helping Wood Mtn resolve “brushfires” as they occur, and providing support to Kyle, James and Joe, who do the actual counting of products being loaded onto the trailers.
I was helping Kyle retrieve a piece of equipment on Wednesday when I cut my left thumb (with my pocket knife) while trying to remove a thick zip tie. Actually, the knife blade was ceramic, not metal, and it broke due to the thickness of the zip tie…jerking over into my thumb and slicing it pretty deep. I had to go to the local Urgent Care to be patched up.
Anyway, I survived, and was back at the lot in a few hours to help finish to day’s work. In the end, Wood Mtn shipped 23 truckloads of product, consisting of 13,000 trees, 10,000 wreaths, several thousand swags, and several miles of garland. Our customers in California and Arizona would have these products in their homes within 48 hours!
Another aspect of the Wood Mtn operation is “Trees for Troops”. Again, it is a fundraising vehicle for schools, primarily, wherein the end product, a 5-6′ Douglas Fir tree is provided to active service military family free of charge. Fed Ex works with Wood Mtn to ship the trees to military bases around the U.S. This year, Wood Mtn was the largest “Trees for Troops” provider in the Nation, with 3,200 trees shipped.
The weather stayed pretty decent all week (for Oregon, in Winter!), so at least our crew (and Angel’s laborers) didn’t have to suffer in the cold, rain, and snow like in previous years. We even had time to fly a drone!
It was a nice week. Randy and I drove up to Oregon (1,034 miles) and back in his nice Silverado pick-up truck. We had a great time shooting the bull, telling old stories, and debating politics. I’m looking forward to doing it again next year!
Fast forward one week:
Charlie and I had dinner with the Woods (Denise and Randy last night). I asked Randy how things settled out after we came home.
One of the King’s Trucking semis was extremely late arriving in So Cal. It was, in fact, the load for Murrieta Valley High School, our local school where several of our grandchildren have gone to school. After many hours of waiting around for the truck, the leader of the booster group was extremely pissed off and threatened Wood Mtn with lawsuits, bad publicity, etc. She demanded a full refund plus the profit that the charity would have made. Of course, the late shipment was not Wood Mtn’s mistake, but a decision was made to cut the group a check and try to smooth things over. At about that time, the missing truck reported in and announced that it would be at the school in a few hours. Randy went down there with check in hand, but hoped that things could be worked out with the irate booster group leader.
The truck arrived, backed in, and Randy had a glimmer of hope that the situation was going to be resolved peacefully. That all changed, dramatically, when the doors of the trailer were opened…to reveal a truckload of Chinese ramen noodles!
Needless to say, the irate lady remained irate, Randy was flabbergasted, and the Wood Mtn organization looked like it was being run by the Keystone Cops. The check and apologies from Wood Mtn were provided to Murrieta Valley High School.
There had been a massive screw up by King’s Trucking, and Randy said that the manly truck driver broke down and cried. Evidently, truck trailers were switched at the company lot, from the guy who had picked up the load to the guy who would drive the thousand miles down to So Cal. Someone wasn’t paying attention.
This seemed to be the theme of King’s Trucking in 2016. Almost all of their trucks were either somewhat late or massively late arriving at their designated locations in California and Arizona. The whole Wood Mtn operation was hobbled and its reputation tarnished because of something not really under its control. That’s life, I guess. But, Randy will make them pay, big time.