Have yourself a merry little Christmas . . .

When I bought this place in 2000, I immediately took it out of production.  The farmer took his crops out that year, but that was the end of conventional farming on this place.  I planted about 8,400 trees, among them 2,400 white pines.  They were just little wisps of trees that year, maybe about 6" tall on average.  Two years later, I was able to harvest one and put on a table for my holiday tree.  In the ensuing years, they got bigger and bigger!  So big, in fact that for the last two years I have brought in volunteer cedars - always plenty of those about - since the pines are all far too big, and I hate to just take a top out.  Cedars smell divine, but they are so stickery that I need to wear heavy jacket and gloves (no knit mittens!) and I actually get out the safety goggles.  The gloves and jacket stay on while I decorate.  Taking it back down is even worse, since by then the needles are dry.  I cannot imagine what the inside of a cow's mouth is like!  They eat these things for a treat.

This year I decided there would be no tree. Last year's tree was not seen by one person save me!  Weather was bad, so some get-togethers I usually host were not held here.  My kids didn't make it up at all over the holidays - much easier for me to go their way, just one person, than for all 11 of them to get up here.  And there was the weather problem.  So I am being "brumsch," as my mother would say of pouters, and decided I would not bother with a tree since NO ONE came to see me last year!

Yesterday I went to a building supply place to get more insulation for the Moop.  I cover the hardware cloth in the back window with Styrofoam to block out the cold and wind in the winter.  But the wind blew it off - 50 mph winds will do that - and I needed another piece.  There at the front of the store were lovely little Norfolk pines.  I came home with the insulation - and the pine.

No lovely scent of cedar, but one string of lights and a dozen ornaments did it, and I have a lovely LIVE tree in my living room.  I'm happy.  And if no one sees it but me, that is good enough.