Trees

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Tuesday, January 4. 2011

A reader sent in this pic of dying, discarded Christmas trees. Mine is still standing proud, outdoors, in its stand in the snow. I hate to let them go.

Posted by Bird Dog at 13:45 | Comments (18) | Trackbacks (0)

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I do not understand people throwing out their Christmas trees before Theophany. Christmas is 12 days of feasting folks ! I also dislike the non-stop Christmas music on the radio start at Thanksgiving, then ending on the day after Christmas. Our culture now tries to party during Advent, instead of fasting, praying, alms giving, and preparing for Christmas, and totally forgets Christmas itself the moment of.

#1 Bogman on 2011-01-04 13:55 (Reply)

Sad. These trees are grown to be cut in their prime only to hang around for a couple of weeks and then left to die. The trees are expendable. A lot like people in our present society. We cast away trees, abandon pets for convenience, and have no respect for life.

#2 Cilla Mitchell, Galveston Texas (Link) on 2011-01-04 14:21 (Reply)

"Boy" will not give up on Christmas, and that includes the tree and the music. Tree will stay up until this weekend, when we will take the practice we adopted from BD, move it out into the back yard, sans ornaments but still adorned with lights for all nature to adore.

#3 Pajak (Link) on 2011-01-04 14:26 (Reply)

After a month or so of that, we will use the tree to start a fire in the backyard fire pit.

#3.1 Pajak (Link) on 2011-01-04 14:27 (Reply)

Buy a chipper/shredder.
Lovely pine mulch for your flowerbeds.
Also handy for autumn leaves and brush.

#4 Ben David on 2011-01-04 15:11 (Reply)

Funny, so why exactly did you buy a dead tree?

I look out my window at 35 years of towering Blue Spruces that all were once in my house as live XMAS trees.

Here is what you do next time.

1. Dig a hole, a huge hole in the late fall where you want your new perfect XMAS tree. Take all the soil in a wheel barrow (garden cart) into your garage. Now about that hole, cover it in and up with leaves. Pile more leaves, big pile on top.

2. Tell your Nursery man that you want a live Xmas tree.

3. Leave it outside in the cold, the freezing cold and only take it in for no more than five days. It will be heavy, be prepared.

4. After Xmas? Kick out the leaves, plant your tree and fill it in with the wheelbarrow of dirt cover it all around with leaves..

Best....

#5 That same guy..... on 2011-01-04 15:15 (Reply)

"Funny, so why exactly did you buy a dead tree?"

Who buys? We hunt and kill our own. This year's model looks like something Dr. Seuss drew.

#5.1 Pajak (Link) on 2011-01-04 15:32 (Reply)

Heh - my brother does it every year - intentionally goes out and finds the weirdest tree is his woods and uses that. Some of them are exactly as you describe - something out of Dr. Suess. :>)

#5.1.1 Tom Francis on 2011-01-04 17:47 (Reply)

Tried that a few times, it never worked.
The trees were so damaged by being indoors for weeks or months (count time in the store and warehouses...) that by the time we could plant them they're always dead as a doornail.

Went back to farmed trees, no cutting in the wild (it's not allowed here and anyway, we live in a region of mostly oak and beech forests), and a few years ago to plastic after I developed an alergy to pine needles.

#5.2 J.T. Wenting on 2011-01-05 01:30 (Reply)

Ben David ... Wood-chippers are very useful things, especially to dispose of, or alter things which are no longer useful into products that will be. Do you remember the Coen brothers' movie Fargo? Unforgettable scene in there involving a wood chipper.

Marianne

#6 Marianne Matthews on 2011-01-04 15:58 (Reply)

Not about chipping trees per se, but a few years back, maybe 20 or so, some guy down in Waterbury put his wife through a chipper after freezing her body solid putting the results into the CT river.

Dr. Henry Lee finally got the guy - he found some microscopic amounts of DNA in the chipper and two teeth - enough to get the guy anyway.

Interesting case too. The cops knew who did it and why, but they couldn't prove it. Took a year or so.

#6.1 Tom Francis on 2011-01-04 17:50 (Reply)

Well said, Marianne - as always! Great visual.

#6.2 milabro (Link) on 2011-01-04 23:30 (Reply)

My friend and I have made it our mission to gather as many discarded christmas trees as we can, season them in the woods til springtime and then have large bonfire with em. We got 11 after driving around for half an hour today so we should have a good lot before the garbage man can get em all.

#7 kilroy on 2011-01-04 21:57 (Reply)

Please - get over it!
Do you feel the same way about that bunch of daisies that grace your home in the summer? Same thing - only larger. It is grown - usually on a farm - helping the local economy and a family business - and then harvested.

The true romantic (like some of us here in Colorado) help manage the local forest by cutting/harvesting ours in areas in need of thinning.

If you can buy a locally grown tree, that helps in many ways - but most urban folks must buy a tree from a farm some distance away - just as they must buy their tomatoes from Arizona during the winter. It's just an agricultural product.

Most communities have recycling programs that provide mulch - a good use of any plant that has outlived its lifecycle. The only bad Christmas tree is one that ends up in the landfill.

**Do agree with That Same Guy regarding live trees, but most folks do not have the land or the skill to pull that one off.

We cut in National Forest land in designated areas to help control pine beetle and help forest health - then recycle and gather the mulch in the spring from the program. If we all could just be as thoughtful with grass clippings and other plant products, that would be ideal.

BD, I do not see sad, discarded trees - I see a product that was grown on an American farm, loved by a family, a plant material ready for reuse in another family yard or garden.

#8 milabro (Link) on 2011-01-04 23:26 (Reply)

Reminds me of a chant we employed at an Arbor Day protest we hooligans held back in H.S. - "Trees are people, too! Tree are people, too!"

Sheeesh, we'd protest anything back then!

#8.1 Pajak (Link) on 2011-01-05 07:20 (Reply)

My tree shall see new life sumerged beneath our lake house dock. This submerged tree will become a habitat and safe haven for smaller fish. So, it shall continue to servefor a while more.

#9 Marc Mousseau on 2011-01-05 07:55 (Reply)

As idiot Greenie Lisa Simpson recently had it: Fir is murder!

#10 BlogDog (Link) on 2011-01-05 11:41 (Reply)

In the years we use a real tree, we keep it up until about February with lots of fire prevention. When we take it down I strip the branches and then cut the tree into wood stove size sections and toss them on the season pile for next year.

#11 Tralfaz on 2011-01-05 11:43 (Reply)

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Tuesday, January 4. 2011

Trees