Our tradition of harvesting our own tree from the property started when the family budget didn’t permit the luxury of visiting the local tree farm. Despite a mostly balanced budget these days, our home grown tree tradition continues. On Sunday, Hannah and I donned Muck boots and headed out into the woods.
I had my eye on a nice looking tree and pointed it out to Hannah. As usual, my choice was: too short, too skinny, lopsided, not full enough, etc. So off we went.
We finally found this tree (stage right). We marked it, looked some more, but ultimately returned to claim our prize.
It’s a nice looking tree – full and symmetrical. And then Hannah moved into place to cut it down.
Uhhhh, so it might be a little tall. It didn’t look so big when we were standing at the top of the ravine.
Armed with a saw about as sharp as a butter knife, Hannah cut the monster down.
After trying to pull it up the hill and out of a field loaded with saplings that clung to our prize like Velcro, Hannah cut two more feet off the bottom hoping it would be easier to handle. We finally managed to flip it around and carry it out butt first trying to follow the path of least resistance.
When it didn’t fit under the porch without the top bending over, we opted to wait for Dad and his chainsaw. Paul took yet another 18 inches off the bottom and snipped the top. All this and we still left a green scrape across the ceiling when we fitted the tree into the stand.
I think it’s fair to say that this year our eyes were bigger than our living room!
Past Christmas tree posts:
9 December 2013: No Snow, No Spirit
15 December 2012: Our Free Range, Organic Christmas Tree
4 December 2010: A Downeast Thunder Farm Christmas Tree
A friend of mine in the business says a tree always grows another four feet when you tie it to the car and another few feet once you get it in the house.
When living in Kodiak, AK the prices for trees were about a weeks work of commissary groceries. We took to the woods and cut down our very own Sitka Spruce. While lovely in shape and color the thing had needles on it worthy of a tattoo shop. Needless to say it was a “bloody” battle to hang lights and ornaments. Now living in Mississippi and being a little older and wiser I have succombed to an artifical tree with little felt birdies on it. 😉
There was a day before we moved to Maine when Paul had convinced me that an artificial tree was the way to go. My engineer could list all the reasons why it was unsafe. It’s taken the advent of LED lights, my promise to keep the tree for just a short while, and putting my foot down that gets us this live tree each year!