The area is still rural although new housing developments are sprouting. The idea is to keep it in the family. He has two young sons and his brother has three children. The farm is a source of income for the father, who lives in Coventry and is retired, but not for Tim and Matt, who live in East Greenwich and have full-time sales jobs with national companies. Each fall, the farm sends postcards to 5,000 families reminding them that it is time to tag trees that they will later cut and take home.
Most business is from repeat customers.
But the Leydens decided that the farm could not continue to survive with a single, seasonal product, sales of which are highly dependent on the weather. They needed to diversify. He suggested a Halloween hayride event. These are popular with tree farms nationally, and fit in well with the tree tagging season, which begins Columbus Day weekend. The farm already had the land, the roads and the tractors.