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Today's sermon: Adopt, don't shop!
You see it all over this time of year: some big SUV with a giant groomed pine lashed to the hood. Or, think about those Christmas tree lots. You go in, run your fingers down a sculpted bough, and 70 needles fall off and drift to the ground. And the price? Fifty bucks for a pretty sickly specimen. Upwards of one fifty for something big and healthy.
Well, I do love a fresh Yule tree. There's something about bringing a tree inside the house that appeals to my school-weary spirit. It's not only festive, it's nourishing to the soul.
I guess it was three years ago that I happened to find myself at a stop light, and I looked to my left and saw a vacant lot. As you might expect in a state that is 1/3 covered with Pine Barrens, the lot had a bunch of pine seedlings growing up, each one about the height of a Christmas tree. The only difference being that these seedlings were somewhat scraggly, and they sport long needles (which I actually prefer).
Something clicked in my head. I could snip down a pine from a vacant lot! Nobody would miss it. I would be able to carry it myself, it would be fresher with fewer boughs to deck, and best of all ... can't beat that price, which is free!
Thus began my new tradition of adopting a feral tree rather than purchasing an expensive (mostly dead) one from the landscaping store.
EXHIBIT A: FERAL TREE
I took a pleasant morning drive in rural New Jersey. I stopped at a vacant lot I had been scoping since last summer. Took my clippers, snipped down this fine tree. Left some branches so it can regenerate.
8 comments:
Perfect!
But, and I am somewhat loathe to ask this, what happens after Christmas? =)
Ann- the China comment above is spam - be careful.
That said, the season is a pagan season - all about nature. And somehow a plastic tree just doesn't fit. The world is becoming so populated and interdependent we have moved away from nature. There are fewer of us each year that try to stay connected. Enjoy your tree. Thanks for sharing
best wishes
the Ol'Buzzard
Love your tree, Anne! A free range free tree!
We had a Ponderosa pine sapling one year. Some people thought it looked weird but we loved it. My cousin, who used to have a few acres of scrubby woods, always used the opportunity to thin out the weak and straggly. We are big proponents of 'alternate' solstice trees!
you fucking rock
A lovely tree. We did that for a few years - adopted a feral tree.
I remember for a while they were Selling Live Trees and then you donated them after Christmas to a Park to be planted, I liked that idea and did it for years, but I don't see the practice so much anymore. Here in the Desert, the cut Trees just can't survive to Christmas and nobody wants the house burning down... so, alas, faux Trees it is for us, but some of them now look relatively realistic. Loving your Feral Tree tho'.
After Christmas, all the trees in Haterfield are collected and mulched. It always saddens me to put my tree out on the curb, but I take solace knowing that there are 100,000 pine seedlings scattered in the many vacant lots of New Jersey.
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