Citizens of WhoVille

I love this tree. It would make a memorable Christmas Tree. I must have walked by it many times over the last four years but never noticed it. Of course it was growing but I thought I would have noticed its charming Who-ville like qualities.. This tree is in the "Christmas Tree Field". It is a couple of acres half way down our kilometer long driveway, that was cleared years ago and , the locals tell me, a prolific pasture . As near as I can tell it was around twenty years or so ago . Then the pasture was just left to let Mother Nature take over. It is now covered with Spruce, Pine, Balsam and Fir. Some of them three inches around and 15 feet high. Most of the pine trees seem to have missed the pine beetle scourge. Maybe because the trees were surrounded by Spruce and Balsam camouflage.

Or maybe when the pine beetles saw this tree they couldn't stop laughing enough to bore in.

I can see the same in fill process happening in all our fields. First Mom sends in the rose bushes as front line troops. Then the odd pine and aspen. Next Spring a local farmer that pastures his Belgian Blue herd on our land has offered to whack it all down with a tractor driven cutter to increase the grass yields.

The dogs like the path I plowed through the Christmas tree field, convinced It was built to speed them to the evil Squirrels that live on the far Eastern side, mocking them from the safety of their impregnable tree fortresses. Taunting the dogs with their squirrely chatter.. It's a God thing that dogs can't climb trees ( or squirrels aren't the size of dogs..

My nose was cold on our morning chunder down to Savory road. We were walking on diamonds with a low gray cloud cover overhead. Last night we had a Breath taking view from our balcony, the diffused light from a full moon shimmering across the snow covered fields. According to Xena she could still make out coyotes a full kilometer away. Her low growl sending them scurrying back to the cover of the darkened forest. I didn't see them of course. But perhaps I lack practice.

Maybe tonight, for practice, I will bay at the moon glow. And say hello to the neighbors dog in the valley below.