The weather was perfect and provided a great backdrop for the visit to Accord by New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets Commissioner, Richard Ball.

Ball was stopping by Bell’s Christmas Tree Farm to cut and collect a Douglas Fir to take down to Woodbury Commons to stand as the New York State Welcome Center’s Christmas tree.

County Executive Jen Metzger and Town Supervisor Erin Enouen were in attendance for the tree cutting.

Watching things carefully was Holly, the farm’s guard dog who works to keep the deer back in the woods. Otherwise, Gordie Bell noted, the deer would do tremendous damage to the young conifers on the farm. The Bells have 150 acres of land and keep 24 acres under Christmas trees.

Commissioner Ball was happy to swap dairy farming tales with Gordie Bell, who explained that the Bells sent all their cows to another farm upstate and switched over to Christmas trees back in the early 1990s. Commissioner Ball responded that he, too, had switched out and grows vegetables on his own farm.

Gordie Bell is the third generation of the family to work the land; his son Brian is the fourth. Brian has a son who may inherit a world of Christmas trees and become the fifth generation. Gordie’s grandfather worked on the D&H Canal.

Metzger thanked the commissioner for coming, recalled discussions with him when she was on the Ag Committee in the State Senate, and noted that she and her family have been coming to Bells farm “all our lives” to get Christmas. She said it was a great experience and another treasured part of Christmas in the Rondout Valley.

With that, the commissioner set to work to harvest his tree. It was then shaken and wrapped and loaded ready to be transported down to Woodbury Commons.