Dean's Trees

By Steve McCarthy, LENA Treasurer with Joyce Phillips contributing

How can you gain the holiday spirit and buy (neighborhood) local?  A visit to Dean Mueller's place on Maher Avenue for your Christmas tree will help.  Dean has sold Christmas trees, from his front yard, since 1987.  Right here in the middle of Lake Edge neighborhood.  These are trees he grows on the family tree farm, in Adams county. 

You walk up his driveway to look through the available trees.  He typically offers white pine, balsam, and Frasers fir trees, with heights varying from about 5' to 9'.  This year he added concolor firs, for people looking for a tree with needles between the long needle white pine and a shorter needle tree.  Most of the time, Dean will meet you right away.  If he is not there, look around, pick a tree, and use the "honor system".  Very neighborly!

Many of the customers are neighborhood regulars.  You may be one of them.  Some people walk over, and carry the tree home.  Others bring a cart for a slightly longer haul.  Most will tie it to the car.  People have been known to come from far off Verona, just to buy from Dean - and to visit. 

Selecting a tree is only part of buying a tree from Dean.  A conversation is often a part of the holiday routine.  With Dean, this could be a time to catch up.  And since many are from the neighborhood, it is another change to visit with your neighbors.  Friends come from when Dean taught at Lafollette High School for six years, and then as an unemployment compensation adjudicator for the state.  You have to be ready to buy Dean's trees.  The neighborhood Christmas spirit is strong.  You cannot buy them before Thanksgiving, and you can't wait until Christmas.  Here it is a week before the holiday, and Dean already has a sign up: "Sorry, Sold Out, Merry Xmas - Dean"

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Images Courtesy of Joyce Phillips