- Location
- Grand Marais, MN
As an arborist, it's an issue. As a husband and father, it's a no-brainer.
Yet I relented again, brought home an imported tree from distant Oregon, a barter deal from a nurseryman. She's obviously the severed top of a much finer tree, showing slight mutational growth from chemically intensive farming, gassed and packaged to survive the interstate highways and retail roustabouts while being routed thru the distribution networks of America's wholesale networks.
Could've left well-enough alone, mounted and displayed as someone's idea of shapeliness, hedge-pruned to comical cone-ness but no, I have tools to mess with. The house now has the telltale aroma of someone running the 200T indoors, a pile of limbs on the living room floor and my preferences using the lopping shears left some gaping voids in the otherwise artistic shape to which I embarked on a cabling reinforcement using hog twine, lifting the limbs to compensate for my overactive approach to interior tree trimming. I'm in the doghouse tonight when the family gets home, certain that they won't truely appreciate the Norfolk Island Pine I made from a North American Noble Fir.
But hey, I'm an arborist. Maybe I can formulate some injectable concoction that may stimulate some growth, fill-out the pruning holes, seal the wounds and create some monster of human artistic design. It's alive I still say as it's gulped 2 gallons of Reed Juice since before I went all hack on her.
To those who might find it environmentally objectionable to fall for the consumer-driven Xmass mentality, I offered an honor prayer to this sacrificial being, and promised to plant one of my windowsill Bald Cyprus' down at the creek to replace this freak of seasonal madness.
But I'll still have to cuddle-up to two dogs to warm myself tonight as the cold front approaches, as the wife will freak when she gets home later and sets the tone of our touching relationship for the next couple days.
Merry Xmass.
Yet I relented again, brought home an imported tree from distant Oregon, a barter deal from a nurseryman. She's obviously the severed top of a much finer tree, showing slight mutational growth from chemically intensive farming, gassed and packaged to survive the interstate highways and retail roustabouts while being routed thru the distribution networks of America's wholesale networks.
Could've left well-enough alone, mounted and displayed as someone's idea of shapeliness, hedge-pruned to comical cone-ness but no, I have tools to mess with. The house now has the telltale aroma of someone running the 200T indoors, a pile of limbs on the living room floor and my preferences using the lopping shears left some gaping voids in the otherwise artistic shape to which I embarked on a cabling reinforcement using hog twine, lifting the limbs to compensate for my overactive approach to interior tree trimming. I'm in the doghouse tonight when the family gets home, certain that they won't truely appreciate the Norfolk Island Pine I made from a North American Noble Fir.
But hey, I'm an arborist. Maybe I can formulate some injectable concoction that may stimulate some growth, fill-out the pruning holes, seal the wounds and create some monster of human artistic design. It's alive I still say as it's gulped 2 gallons of Reed Juice since before I went all hack on her.
To those who might find it environmentally objectionable to fall for the consumer-driven Xmass mentality, I offered an honor prayer to this sacrificial being, and promised to plant one of my windowsill Bald Cyprus' down at the creek to replace this freak of seasonal madness.
But I'll still have to cuddle-up to two dogs to warm myself tonight as the cold front approaches, as the wife will freak when she gets home later and sets the tone of our touching relationship for the next couple days.
Merry Xmass.
