By Toby Bartlett
On the November day I visit Beech Ridge Farm, Robert Pearson greets me in a T-shirt, as though he’s magically weather-immune. I shiver just looking at him. Mary, whom most know for her decades of service at the Scarborough Police Department, is fighting a mean cold, but looks warmer in her layers and cap. Regardless of their wardrobe choices, both siblings present the perfect image of dedicated, absurdly hard-working farmers. Hunter, Robert’s son stands alongside, smiling and delighted as if he hasn’t been doing this since before he can remember.
The thing about arriving at Beech Ridge Farm in early November is that the light fools you. It was mid-afternoon when I turned off Beech Ridge Road, north of the intersection with Holmes Road. While the sun shone rose-gold at the farthest edges of the fields, there was a noticeable shiver to the air. Daylight Saving had just done what it always does: rearranged time. But a bit of time travel seemed appropriate for a visit to a Christmas tree farm so far ahead of the holidays.
I usually only come here on the brightest, busiest day of the year – the Friday after Thanksgiving. I try to arrive early and select a tree that is always, somehow, better even than the one I imagined. I walk into the barn, inhale the balsam-heavy air like I am trying to store lungfuls of it for winter, and choose a tree I insist I can carry myself. I cannot. I learn this lesson every year like it is some sort of surprise.
On the walk back to the car, I always look around. Wreaths with red bows. Volunteers who appear genuinely pleased to help. Children issuing legal-level arguments about whether the tree is too small. Adults pretending they know how to secure a tree to the roof of a car. It is chaotic in the best possible way.
Today, I am here to see something quieter. The season before the season. The work that happens long before anyone is debating ornament placement or why the lights worked perfectly yesterday and not today.
We stand behind the cluster of barns that anchor the farm; one of them older than our country itself. Others were added in the 1980s, the way farms expand: slowly, logically, one practical decision at a time. And yet, the decision to buy this farm may not have seemed like a practical one. At least, not 50+ years ago when it happened.
On an afternoon ride home from attending classes at Gorham State Teachers College (now the University of Southern Maine), the late Jim Pearson ran out of gas. He trudged to the nearest front door, which happened to be the very front door of his future family farm. Here he got the fuel he needed to get, but he also got an idea.
“I tried to buy it, and finally did,” he said in a local TV interview years later. It was 1969 when he and his wife, Nancy, along with their daughter, Mary, took up residence. (Robert was born a few years later.) Back then, the land looked very different: old New England dairy pastures, a 300-year-old farmhouse, and an orchard of pear trees.
“It’s a very old place,” Jim said proudly in that long-ago interview. “We planted our first Christmas trees in 1984. They came from Western Maine Nursery, three-two seedlings, about eight to twenty inches tall. And it takes about ten years.”
That bears repeating: It takes about ten years. A decade of trimming, shaping, cone-picking, and weathering whatever nature decides to do. And yet, as Jim explained, it was all part of the plan. “They take a long while, and a lot of care, and a lot of close-up attention to get them to that state.” He said it like the teacher he was – giving clear instructions, not just advice.
Of course, it wasn’t just a decade of watch and wait. Before Christmas trees, the farm had another life. Nancy, who has a knack for business as well as hard work, opened a grain and feed store in what was the garage. The business grew quickly. They added one building, then another, until the place became a local stop for everything from chicken feed to rabbit pellets.
Yet, as all farmers know, everything has its season. So, when Robert graduated from Maine Maritime Academy, Nancy and Jim put up a “Closed” sign to attend the ceremony and simply never turned it back around. That was the end of the feed store era, and the real kick-off of its Christmas tree years.
Now that I have some background, we head to the back to begin the official tour. Robert shouts to his sister, “Can you grab the earmuffs?” Mary emerges from an open shed where large, well-loved and well-used machines are stored. She hands her brother the ear protectors as he totes that hefty trimmer. He offers a smile, nod, looks her in the eye and gives a gentle “Thank you, Mary.”
And that’s when I see it. In that single, seemingly commonplace exchange between middle-aged siblings there is a simple, carried rhythm, a comfortable steadiness. I’ve just seen a tiny sample of the habitual teamwork and persistent kindness that a family must have to succeed and overcome the challenges and heartbreak that working the land carries.
There’s history in that rhythm. Not the sentimental kind, but the kind made from decades of doing the same work beside the same people, through seasons and events that arrive whether you’re ready or not.
It’s a lot like a magic trick, but not one dappled in twinkling lights or even a single snowflake. It’s born of many seasons and a type of work that is equal parts muscle memory, intense dedication, and family love. Their work is the magic because they transform labor into our living memories.
We may not remember the specifics about each tree, but do we ever forget them?
This lines up with Pearson’s unofficial motto, which I would learn late in our discussion that afternoon. I asked them if they have any “Pearsonisms” or motto, or family-specific “razz” as they are clearly the razzing type. They don’t hesitate.
Robert says: “We joke about ‘just for now.’ We’ll be moving something or putting something somewhere and say, ‘let’s just put it here for now.’ And ‘just for now’ is usually about five years.”
Mary adds, “We should have a family tattoo that says ‘for now.’”
We all laugh, because it’s funny, but it’s also among the truest things said all afternoon. “Just for now” isn’t temporary here. It’s a way of moving through time.
A tool or water bottle gets set down for now. A machine gets patched for now. A plan waits for now. A season begins and ends for now. Even the trees, ten years of shaping and tending, are brought into a family’s home for a matter of weeks. And then they live only in memory. If that isn’t “just for now,” what is?
At Beech Ridge Farm, Christmas doesn’t start with December, or retail displays, or even snow.
Because I was here to learn, I just asked the simplest question: So, how does this all start? It starts in April, Mary says, “As soon as the ground lets us.” First comes fertilizing, bucket by bucket, tree by tree. Mary and Robert walk on either side of a slow-moving trailer while their mother, Nancy, now ninety, drives them down the rows. Each tree is fed by hand. No shortcuts. No automation. Just the same deliberate rhythm their father taught them.
In May, they pick cones. The tiny green ones that look deceptively like new growth. “One tree might have five or six,” Mary says. “But I’ve counted as many as 154 on one. The drought years do that.” She implies May of 2026 will be a doozy.
By July, the bright green “candle” growth hardens, and shaping begins. This is where art, memory, and patience meet. Mary selects the leader, the one branch destined to hold the star or angel, while Robert follows behind, trimming and rounding; guaranteeing a “best tree yet” appearance.
This work does not just happen. A “best tree yet” is apprenticed. It is worked for. And it is earned only by knowing what to keep and what to let go. It’s another space for the family’s unofficial motto.
This farm has always been a series of “for nows.” The feed store was for now. The orchards were for now. The trees are for now.
And soon, something else will be for now. Robert mentions that if you look closely, you may notice fewer trees in the fields. There are likely four more full seasons of Christmas tree sales the way we know them. This is not an ending. It is simply the next season.
Hunter has a lot of ideas for the new seasons. Maybe fruit trees. Maybe goats. Maybe a space for gatherings. Nothing forced. Nothing rushed. The Pearsons do not decide what the land should be. They listen. And the land tells them. Just like the trees.
As we finished our walk, the sun slipped lower. The air carried that particular November promise: “Don’t panic, it’s not winter… yet.” But I can definitely feel it waiting over that ridge in the distance.
In a handful of days, the farm will have a weekend full of families. Mittens and arguments about which tree is best. Laughter. Cold noses. Warm cars waiting.
The trees will go home and shine for a short while. And then the season will turn again. Which is exactly how the Pearsons think it should be.
Jim’s words ring through my head: “They take a long while, and a lot of care, and a lot of close-up attention…” And I smile because he could be talking about everything we do in life – anything we want to shine, anyways.
I cannot ignore how moved I was by my visit. The Pearsons are a remarkable example of fortitude. They lost Jim to an immense tragedy on the very farm he built and they work. And yet he is always present, and never as a sadness. Tools he made are still in use, plans he laid out are still coming to literal fruition, and his family sees him (while a certain tobacco whiff comes to remind them he’s still with them) everywhere.
This farm is like a huge lesson a dedicated teacher took time to map out and put into action. He taught his family all the right lessons – patience, commitment, integrity, love – and it shines in those “just for now” trees.
I love to open or close my stories with lyrics, poems, or quotes. I promised myself I wouldn’t choose something obvious for this article. But it’s impossible to avoid. I didn’t even reach my car before I was humming the song I’d chosen. In one of its lesser-known refrains it talks of the perfection of any Christmas tree, but more accurately, it could also be another Pearson motto:
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
We learn from all your beauty.
Your bright green leaves with festive cheer
Give hope and strength throughout the year.
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
We learn from all your beauty.
Toby Bartlett is a Scarborough resident and freelance writer with over 30 years of experience. Learn more at WordsAndIdeas.com.
Top photo: Mary and Robert Pearson inspect trees at Beech Ridge Farm in Scarborough. Photo by Amanda Huebner Photography.
