Trego's Mountain Ear

This year, I walked out with the Sandvik, my daughter and her family, to harvest a Christmas tree from one of the many blowdowns around the place. It’s an activity to continue with the little boys.

I’m not sure that Remi understood the idea of a Christmas tree – he’s at the stage of developing a vocabulary, he understands what a tree is (he kept pointing out a 16 inch DBH Ponderosa as his choice), but melding the concept of Christmas and tree together is still an advanced concept in linguistics.

We took several trees – one was a touch flat sided because of one branch that had broken in the fall, the other was a beautiful 6 – full branches, like we used to drag out and sell when I was young and Christmas trees were a part of the ranch operation. It was squashed flat and frozen – but the warmth of the house will let the tree stand in glory for a few days beyond the wind storm that took it to the ground.

Still, Remi was developing a different concept for the Christmas tree – along with the tree, his small hands were filled with equally small branches – holiday treats for his browsing goats. I think that Remi’s interpretation of the Christmas tree as a treat for his goats may extend the spirit of Christmas into March or April.