[Crying]
Folks around here know our place by the big red sleigh that's out front,
and the big old metal coffee can with free candy canes out by the register.
Just call our place, Frost Hill Tree Farm. You can call me Sam.
That's not the real names, of course, but that'll do for the story.
Well, one night I was locking things up, and I had the shock of my life when I saw a huge big foot out here at the tree farm.
It was back at the far fence row between the last two lanes of Fraser Furs.
It stepped out into the yard light, then turned its whole upper body right toward me.
We had a good look at each other, and I'll say that.
It's been a couple years, and I'm still processing it.
But I heard you ask for stories for this special thing you're doing for Christmas,
and I decided I was going to sit down and type it out as best as I could. So here goes.
So I'm Sam from Frost Hill, and we've been on this land since around the 1920s,
and the tree farm started when my grandfather put in the first 500 or so seedlings way back in the 1940s.
I grew up here. This farm is in my blood.
I can tell you how long a Fraser Fur takes to make a good seven footer.
That would be eight years if you trim it right, and longer if you don't.
I can also tell you how a thin bark split looks when we get a snap freeze after a warm rain.
I can also tell you what black bear looks like crossing the rows in November.
And what a man looks like when he's had one too many ciders and thinks he can duck out with a hundred dollar tree without us knowing.
We get deer out here too, fox and neighborhood kids, and wildly little teenagers.
And one time we had a goat that somehow got unloaded from a vented horse trailer.
He took a tour between our tree rows, like he was going through to pick out the perfect tree to take home to his missus.
But what I saw that night wasn't any of those.
We're a small family operation.
A you cut kind of place on the weekends and on weekday evenings in November and December.
Then me and my nephew do shaping and clean up on the early parts of the weekdays.
We've got a big shaker that abounds half the forest floor out of a tree,
and a big baler resleeves of netting that will slide down over the top of a tree like a big sock.
There's a kerosene heater in the wreath shed that smells terrible, but puts out incredible heat.
And we are sure to hang the extra hand-sauce on the nails at the back of the pay shed, so nobody walks off with one accidentally.
We close at eight during the week in December.
Now if folks are still out there wandering around at eight o'clock, I let them finish up.
But we start shedding outer road lights down, and we politely ask them to make their selections and head to the front.
Same as any business at closing.
The day before this we'd had a very good snowfall after a warm spell.
This happened on a Monday, by the way.
We'd had a busy weekend, and the weekday run was starting off pretty steady.
The day was normal. Families in knit hats.
Picture taking out by the red slay, and one little boy who cried when his dad cut their tree, for some reason.
Now by seven the flow had slowed to a trickle.
I sent our two hired hands on home.
My nephew was homesick with what we suspected was that really bad flu that came from that place overseas.
By 730 it was just me. The radio in the shed was whispering O holy night,
and a couple from town was finishing a hot cider at the burn barrel.
They waved and I waved back, and soon after I watched their taillights go around the bend past the mailbox.
They were the last.
Now it's the half hour after that when the farm turns back into the farm that I know all year.
I shut up all the warm white stringers over the pay shed, then the flood lights over the baler,
then leave the two yard lights on, one by the gravel, and one at the back corner, just to finish out the night.
I walked the saw horses. I make sure no blades got dropped in the slush,
and I emptied the shaker tray of needles, checked the baler sleeve count, and sweep the pay shed floor,
so I don't scrape sap off my boots onto the truck petals.
It's a rhythm I could do in my sleep.
I could tell you where every rut is under that gravel, and which rows hold the drift in a north wind.
The air that night had that sharp metallic smell that it gets when it's right at about 28 degrees,
and the snowflakes are just starting to come down.
There was no wind that night, but you could hear the creek down below the back fence tinkling under a thin skin of ice on top.
The yard light at the back throws a cone of light out that just reaches the outer lanes of trees,
just enough to make cross shadows in the furs, and pick out the fence post with a little bit of halo.
It's not bright, but it's enough to outline things enough that you can see a deer, a bear, or some kid,
or even that drunk guy with the ciders that I was talking about.
But I wasn't seeing any of that, though I was seeing something all right.
It started as a shoulder sliding through rows about 40 yards out.
The shape was larger than I was expecting, and it set me back for a second.
It wasn't walking, unsteadily, like some bear on its back legs walking.
It was a smooth movement, fast, and unhesitating.
It was upright and tall enough that, even in the half-light, I got that little neck prickle that your body gives you
when you see something that doesn't quite fit things you know, or things you usually see out there.
I leaned on the broom and I squinted through the falling snowflakes.
The shoulder appeared again, then the arc of the back, then a long arm that swung down way below
where any winter coat sleeve would ever end up even on a tall man.
The hand at the end of that arm had a thick and meaty look to it,
and it wasn't swinging like some crazy pendulum, but it moved with the stride, then it held still when it paused, then it floated again.
It was a very natural motion.
Then it came even with a gap between the rows that lines up with the yard light, and it stepped into that opening.
I was speechless for a second or two. All I could do was stare.
It was just inside the edge of the light, not where it's bright like daylight, but bright enough that it was not in the dark anymore, not by any means.
This thing was taller than the fence by a good head, broader than any football center that I'd hosted in a you-cut photo out front,
and it had a head that showed a slope to the crown, not a sharp cone, more of a natural slant, and there was a brow that shadowed the eyes.
The hair wasn't shaggy like a deep shag carpet, but it was longer in some places, and then shorter across the chest in the face.
And the hair was darker where clinging snowflakes had melted and lighter at the tips of the hair that was still dry.
There were no Parker lines like a coat. No seam of clothing anywhere.
The chest and the belly showed as one solid piece. The neck looked swallowed up by the shoulders.
And here's the part that burned into me. It did not turn its head to look at me. It turned its whole upper body.
You know how a man carrying a sack of feed will turn with his shoulders first, because that sack kind of makes him lock his hips as he's walking?
It was like that. It turned, and the shoulder closest to me rolled back a touch just so I could see the chest almost dead square on.
There was nothing threatening about it. It was just getting a good look at me.
Sometimes when you're nervous or under stress, your brain will go for anything that's kind of familiar.
And for me, I guess the most familiar thing was where I was standing anyway was to say "evening" just as I did a hundred times a day passing families in the rows.
I said it, and it felt like I had screamed it, but really I don't think I got past normal indoor voice.
I said it and quickly shut my mouth. I remember staring down the rows at it as the snowflakes fell.
It breathed out, and I could see the stream of its breath. And then I knew this was no joke.
That heated breath coming out was not coming out from behind a mask.
I don't recall thinking of it exactly like that right then, but it was something I knew instantly.
The big foot looked at me as it took two long unhurried steps, not straight toward me exactly, but following the lane of trees just to my right.
I was rooted to the spot. It reached the fence, and I stopped even pretending that it was anything other than a big foot.
And if it wasn't a big foot, it was definitely something very much like a big foot, maybe just something I don't have a word for.
The back line fence is four strands over woven wire. It's at four feet on the post. Then the top stand at roughly five feet.
We went to five feet because we had a run of deer jumpers three years ago.
I've seen a good buck crouch and pushed through the woven wire when the bottom is loose.
I've seen a teenager who shouldn't even be out there in the off hours, climb it with the grace of a sack of laundry.
But I have never, in my life, watched anything step over a top wire without having to step on something to lift its leg over it.
But not this thing. This thing did just that.
It took short steps, pushed down on the top wire, and I heard the wire groan. Then it lifted one great leg over the wire, clearing the top cleanly.
Then the other leg followed. It was exactly the way we would step over a really big log.
On the far side, it took three long steps down into the ditch and up. Then it paused.
And again, it turned its upper body as if it was deciding whether I was going to be a problem.
And maybe it would have to deal with me. Maybe it was thinking it should have already dealt with me.
But when it turned and looked at me, this wasn't the casual look I got the first time. It's hard to explain, but there was a noticeable difference in its look.
Me? I stood there with my broom like some fool not moving an inch.
When I first saw it, my eyes were clocking the shape and the size of it, looking at the hair, looking at the movement.
Now I was looking more at the face, especially now that the yard light at the end of the nearest row by the fence lit the face up even more, with the light hitting the side of the bigfoot's face perfectly.
Now the brow ridge cut a dark line over the eyes. From where I stood, the nose looked flatter and wider than ours would be, with a wide, thin-lipped mouth just under it.
The bigfoot looked at me for just that second, seemed to make up its mind, and then thankfully slipped down between the trees beyond the fence, and it was lost in the darkness.
I stood there blinking. I remember my breath was coming out fast because my breath was coming out white and puffing up in front of my eyes, and I consciously started pushing my breath out downward so I could see.
I was thinking that I was also stumped and shocked. I knew exactly what I had seen, but I really didn't know what to think.
I knew I wasn't going to follow it, though. I also wasn't going to go row by row as I normally would to shut up the yard light switches.
I would hit them at the fuse box up front in the shed instead. I backed up a half a row, keeping my eyes on the field of trees just beyond the fence.
Then I turned and did a brisk walk back to the shed up front. I was almost to the shed when I heard it. There was a wood banging on wood sound coming from beyond all the way across the field of trees.
Now my spine felt like a thousand electric ants were walking along it, heading straight up to my scalp. I didn't answer those knocks. I didn't even know that that was a thing at the time.
I really didn't know much about Bigfoot before this night, just what little I had seen on snippets of old documentaries.
In the shed I went to the safe and I pulled out the old 38 that we kept there hidden in the back. We were once robbed at gunpoint a couple years ago.
Then the robbers went around and were walking up to our customers, robbing them at gunpoint one by one because they knew it would be probably 20 minutes before a deputy could get to our side of the county.
Anyway, that 38 probably wouldn't have done much damage to the Bigfoot creature that I was seeing, but I felt better with that gun on me.
I quickly ran the cash register totals and I threw all the cash in a bag. I would take it up to the house and do the deposit there. I did that sometimes anyway.
I shut off the shed heater, shut off all the breakers except the far yard lights at the perimeter, and locked everything up and headed quickly from my truck parked just outside.
Now here's the thing. I'm not going to say I was terrified, but I was spooked for sure, but I sure wasn't going to abandon my business or my duties. I got them done, and that was a relief.
But right when I sat down in my truck I saw the far yard lights flicker like they were being knocked around. My hair stood up on end. I fired up the truck and I headed out of there.
I drove down the lane that separates the actual tree farm from our house and the three cleared acres around it. I drove slowly with my bright lights on.
Where our personal driveway comes out and the lane for the tree farm joins it, I pulled around and I faced my headlights back down the tree farm lane.
I sat there for maybe twenty seconds and my phone suddenly rang, scaring me almost half to death. My wife was up at the house and had been watching for the truck lights. She saw me stop and turned around and she got worried.
She watches every night, especially since we got held up. "Are you all right?" she asked. I said, "Yeah," and I was only half lying.
I told her some story about I was looking at the lights to see which ones were still on or something. I don't even remember what I said. And again, I was only half lying. I was watching to see if anything else moved.
I didn't sleep too bad that night, but I can't say I slept good either.
Come morning, I was out there with full daylight as soon as it came. The snow from the night before had softened the print just enough to make the edges soft and round, but they were there, and they told a very simple story.
I walked to the fence where it had stepped over, then away from the fence toward the trees, though I didn't follow those tracks into the trees.
You could see each depression in the snow clearly. It was hard to get a real measurement with the softened edges, but my tape was showing about 13 inches in the shallow dip of the print at the bottom, and almost 16 at the top of the print where the snow sloped away from the bottom.
No way to get the true depth, though.
I laid a tape from the back of one heel impression to the next, and I got 64 to 68 inches. I'm six feet even, and I can't come anywhere near that.
Step with, which is how far the line wandered left or right as it stepped, was very narrow, almost heel to toe. It walked like a tightrope walker without all the wobble.
I had my fill of looking around, knowing the prints would soon be melting under the morning sun. That day it was supposed to warm up to the low forties, so I knew it would all be gone before the first customers ever showed up, but maybe not before my nephew arrived.
Around nine, my nephew Troy pulled in with breakfast sandwiches for both of us. He handed me one, and I asked him, "Hey, did you see anything on your way in by any chance?"
He looked at me and said, "What? You mean besides a sheriff with the radar gun behind Mr. Ludlow's round bails, a hay? Why?"
He half chuckled as he bit into the sandwich, and he talked all the way through chewing on the egg, which kind of drives me crazy, but he's family.
So I told him, "Not everything, but enough."
He listened, he ate a sandwich, and when I was done telling him everything, he looked away and then back at me and said, "Huh?"
Which is Troy's speak for, "Well, I believe you, but I sure don't know what to make of it or what to say."
Troy rubbed his forehead, and I figured this awkward talk was all bit over. But no, it wasn't.
I shrugged and bit into my now cold sandwich, as Troy started telling me what happened a few nights before, late on Saturday after we closed.
We had stayed open till 10 that night because business was very brisk, even at nine o'clock, and we were making enough that Troy decided to stay open.
I had gone on home, we took turns through the season of staying to close up, and he was there alone.
He also wanted to burn the pile of trimmings behind the reshed. He liked doing stuff like that, just sitting out there with a big bonfire basically was what he was going to do.
And sometimes I would stay up for that, but not that night. I had been out there since early that morning, while he came in in the afternoon, so it was our trade-off.
He said he was sitting there, and he heard some tapping sounds down in the ditch, sounded like rocks being lightly tapped together.
He thought it might be some kids, so he yelled out, "Hey, we're closed!"
The tapping stopped. But he felt really strange after that. He went in the shed and got the 38-hour of the safe.
Something had him spooked, though he couldn't say exactly what. Like me, Troy has grown up on this land, and Troy's a good sort, and I do trust him.
For him to say he was spooked, that said something to me. He cut the burn pile off early with the water hose.
While he was doing that, he said there was a bad, rank smell rolling in from the ditch on the breeze.
It was something he had never smelled before, and he wasn't sure how to describe it.
He shut the hose off, locked up the shed, and got out of there.
He said he didn't say anything on Sunday, because by the time he got there, we were already so busy, and the whole day was so crazy, it just never came up.
We chewed the fat over this whole thing for quite a while as we were doing some prep work for the day.
And although they might not be exactly the same thing, what I saw and what he heard, we kind of felt that it was.
For three evenings after the siding, as I shut the pay shed at close, I left both yard lights on an extra half hour and listened.
Twice I heard two hollow knocks out by the ditch, then one farther along.
Once I heard nothing but the creek, I never knocked back.
I don't know why people do that. It's like they're starting a conversation that I'm betting they really don't know how to finish.
By the fourth evening, I went ahead and turned the fire lights off at closing time as I used to do.
Now the farm had finally felt like it had gone back to being my land, the one that I've always known, the land I feel comfortable walking around in at night.
I know the first question that usually comes is if this could possibly have been a prank.
Well, I can't rule anything out, but I'll tell you this.
I can't think of a single reason why anyone would bother.
That would be some darn cold work just to go out and pull a prank, and they were zero pay off.
No trees went missing.
And how did someone prank me clear that fence like I saw?
I don't believe they could do it for a second.
I don't know anyone that could, and I've seen a lot of people try.
So I'll stick to what the folks on your channel understand and will probably believe.
I had a big foot that night that walked around like it knew the land better than I did.
And I believe it's what Tori experienced just a few nights prior.
Maybe the lights and all the people attracted it.
Your guess is as good as mine.
If you read this on SquatchMis, please tell folks I'm not trying to make believers of anyone.
Either they already believe or something like my story isn't going to change them.
I know what I saw in a yard light at the end of some rows of trees by the fence line at closing time.
And weird as it might sound.
It has become one of my favorite Christmas time memories.
I'm not saying I want to see the big foot again, but just knowing that I have seen one is kind of like a big deal for me.
Thanks for letting me get this down for you.
We're just now gearing up for the season already, and it's not quite November 1st as I'm typing this for you.
But I am hoping that when you hear this, you're already there in the Christmas spirit.
Good night.
Thanks again.
And Merry SquatchMis to you.
Sam in North Carolina.
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