Photograph courtesy of Carol Larsen and used with permission.
There are Christmas parades everywhere, at this time of year. But there aren’t that many Christmas tractor parades.
The Victorian Village of Ferndale is an exception.
They’re having their twentieth Annual Christmas Lighted Tractor Parade this year–and it’s a tradition honoring the close-knit community and the fortitude of the local residents. The parade starts on Ferndale’s Main Street this Saturday evening, December 16th, at 7:00–“or whenever we get done the milking,” says parade organizer Carol Larsen.
According to their entry form, parade vehicles must be exclusively tractors or horse- or tractor-drawn entries. Prize categories include “Best Lights,” “Oldest Tractor”, “Most Original”, and the top prize, in honor of Carol’s parents: “Best Overall.”
Ferndale, which is the home of the nation’s tallest living Christmas tree, may look like a Christmas card. But the realities of life in this ranching community are quite different.
“You have to be really hearty to make a living as a dairyman here in Ferndale,” Carol says.
Carol, who has been organizing the parade since 1994, has firsthand knowledge of the challenges–and sometimes, flat-out heartbreak. Her parents were dairy farmers who survived the floods of 1955 and 1964.
Carol recalls that during the flood at Christmas, 1955, her father and the local sheriff took a small boat and traveled between the Eel and Salt Rivers, late at night, to rescue her father’s hired help. The rising waters swept away all the buildings but one: a barn to which Carol’s dad piloted two rescued families.
“He got everyone up on top of the hay mow,” Carol says. “As night went on, the waters came up and daddy knew the cows were completely underwater.” Carol’s dad and the rescued families expected the barn to be swept out to sea, like all the other surrounding buildings.
“Mom and I went to town the next morning and people told her my dad and everyone had been washed out to sea,” Carol says. “It was a day or so later that she found out they were alive.”
“My parents did not live long enough to see (the parade),” Carol says, “but (the settlers here)…are a dying breed, to be respected and thanked for the community they built.”
A week prior to Ferndale’s 2012 Christmas Lighted Tractor Parade, Carol took the time to talk about her experience as parade organizer, and some of her favorite memories.