TIVERTON - Just about every couple that lives in the city thinks about cashing it in and moving to the country. Sometimes, people actually do it, and they make it work. Avery Smith and Mark LeSaffre had just begun renovations on their four-story house in Boston's South End when they spotted the latest "House For Sale" in Yankee magazine. Clark's Christmas Tree Farm in Tiverton was the monthly feature.

"We didn't even know where Tiverton was," said Avery, laughingly. "We got out the map and took a drive down to take a look at the house."

Avery Smith arranges pine cones in a basket in the shed at Clark's Christmas Tree Farm. PHOTO BY RICHARD W. DIONNE JR.

First they drove past it and took a right up Pond Bridge Road, up past Ferolbink Farm to the Sakonnet River, and back on Neck Road, around Nonquit Pond and through Tiverton Four Corners. By the time they got back to the Clark Farm, Avery and Mark had fallen in love with Tiverton.

"It was January, gray and bleak, but it was still so beautiful. The stone walls, the fields, cows grazing right above the ocean ... And on the drive back to Boston, we were already saying 'I think we should do this.' "

On July 4, 1998, they moved with their two small children from an inner city townhouse to a sprawling Christmas tree farm, ready to learn how to be farmers.

A conscious decision

The decision was not as impulsive as it sounds. The couple had already realized city life was not what they wanted for Gus, 3, and Claire, 1.

"Everything for children has to be so structured when you live in the city," Avery said. "You can't just open the door and let them go. And we knew we weren't suburb people, so that wasn't an option." The challenge was finding something close enough to Boston that Mark could continue his business as co-owner of A Street Frames, a specialty business that designs and handcrafts custom frames for artwork. And once they found the farm, the challenge was how to be part-time Christmas tree farmers.

"The business has had to evolve to make it manageable part-time," Avery said. "We knew we didn't want both of us working full-time away from the kids." And although they knew virtually nothing about Christmas tree farming when they bought Clark's, they sensed it just might give their family the lifestyle they were searching for.

Learning the business

Avery and Mark bought the business and the farm from Leo and Janice Clark, both in their 80s, who planted the first Christmas trees on the land in 1959 and had been farming it ever since. Mrs. Clark was born in the farmhouse, which her father constructed in 1906 on land that had been in her family for five generations. At one time a chicken farm, the property boasted a garage, a shed and a "summer cottage," a remodeled chicken coop the couple bought and moved onto the property years ago. Each summer, the Clarks moved out of the main house across the driveway and into the cottage, leaving the main house empty until they moved back in when autumn arrived.

So, it seemed perfectly natural for the Clarks to spend that first summer of 1998 in the cottage, while Mark, Avery, Gus and Claire moved into the farmhouse.

"The Clarks were here that first summer and always available for advice or consultation after that — they were so helpful," Avery said. Mark, who worked in a nursery for a summer years ago, took a couple of classes at the University of Rhode Island and consulted with state agencies and the R.I. Christmas Tree Growers Association, of which Clark's is a member.

"It has been an incredible learning process," Avery said. "This work is completely a labor of love — you don't go into it for the money."

The first year, Mark and Avery tried to do it all. Three days a week, Avery drove to Portsmouth to drop the children off at their preschool, and then drove up to Boston to work. At the end of the day, she drove back to pick up the kids by 5:30 p.m., and brought them back to Tiverton.

"And that first year we opened in October, like the Clarks always had. We realized we were leaving the kids with babysitters every weekend right through December, and that isn't why we'd moved here. We knew we were going to have to condense the season."

As they learned the business of farming Christmas trees, Mark and Avery adapted it to the kind of family life they wanted. "Your ideas of how the business should work evolve, and you have to go with the flow. It was really a process for us to get to the point where we could really embrace this business."

Although the farm no longer offers early tagging and doesn't open for business until right before Thanksgiving, it has maintained and augmented a loyal customer base that brings the same faces back year after year.

Part of the farming process has been learning to live with uncertainty. "You have to come to terms with the fact that as hard as you try to control things, this business is unpredictable."

Cycles of drought or unusually heavy rainfall can affect tree growth and inventory for years to come, in ways that can't always be anticipated. Half the seedlings planted in the spring to replace the trees cut the previous season can easily die from pest infestations or lack of water. So, do you hire someone to water the seedlings all summer? Will that pay off in the long run? Those are the kinds of questions Mark and Avery have had to tackle each step of the way.

Making it work

Now heading into their sixth season, the family has found a way to make this business work for them. One key has been sharing the workload.

"I am not the mechanical one," Avery said. "That's Mark's area — he does the tractors and the equipment. I do the planting." She also keeps the books (in the old ledgers, not on the computer), runs the shed where customers pay for their trees, and maintains the mailing list. Weed and perimeter control, shearing the trees in the summer, establishing the leader on each tree, and pest control are all tasks that had to be learned and negotiated.

Claire and Gus, now 7 and 10, also pitch in during the season. Claire likes helping out with the calculator, the cash box and the "paid" stamp.

"People show up with no cash, just credit cards. If they have a couple of dollars, I just tell them to send me the rest in a check," Avery said. "People who are here to rip you off are few and far between."

Gus likes to ride on the John Deere Gator. He also loves to create things out of pinecones or whatever else is available that can be sold in the shed.

"This is definitely a low-tech operation," Avery said, and that makes it easier for the kids to be involved in different facets of the operation.

Making it theirs

Although Mark and Avery have condensed the season, they have also added to the value and function of the farm in a variety of ways. To make their own driveway safer for their children, they created a parking lot and separate entrance for the farm itself. Mark has also restored the farmhouse, including the addition of crown moldings and beadboard, dark wooden floors and period fixtures in the bathroom. They are currently in the middle of winterizing the summer cottage so they can rent it out.

And then there's the garage. Although his business interests are currently the farm and the framing business, Mark is really an artist. In spite of how busy he is, he hasn't forgotten that. He has converted a "bump-out" in the garage that was once used to shelter the school bus Mrs. Clark's father drove, into a studio.

The new owners also upgraded the equipment. While Mr. Clark had time to tinker, "we needed efficiency," Avery said.

She has friends who are artists and craftsmen. The farm sells their goods on consignment, everything from handmade soaps to baked goods and wreaths.

In addition, Avery and Mark have added a shingled Quonset hut to the property. They keep mini-horses, ready to greet this year's customers. And chickens, the original identity and purpose of the property, are back in residence.

Yet as ensconced as the family is on the farm, the connection to their South End neighborhood in Boston has not been lost. "Every year, we bring in wreaths and trees for our old neighborhood association," Avery said.

Looking ahead

Farmland in Tiverton and Little Compton is becoming an endangered species, so you have to wonder if Gus and Claire will want to — or even be able to — maintain their family's Christmas tree farm.

"How do you hold on to little farms?" asked Avery, posing the critical question.

On the other hand, Mark and Avery have been moved and impressed by the help available to them. "URI has been amazing. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture is always ready to send someone out, free of charge, to consult on a pest infestation or to advise us on a loan."

If Gus and Claire do want to continue the business some day, their inheritance of their parents' artistic creativity may be their greatest asset. "The creative potential is one of the really fun things about running this kind of business," their mother said with a smile.

Clark's highlighted in a children's book

Author Sandra Jordan of New York City wrote a children's book about Clark's Christmas Tree Farm published in 1993 by Orchard Books, who distributed it nationally. In addition to describing the cycle of Christmas tree farming in words a child can understand, the book includes colorful photographs of the Clarks, their friends and family and their collective work on the farm.

By Jana Porter

jporter@eastbaynewspapers.com