Christmas Tree

1. When we moved here, there was a nice little arbor vitae shrub near the corner of the house. All the other arbor vitaes have been removed through the years as they became drastically overgrown. But the one we left. It's no longer 5' high. Now, it's about 25'. It drops branches and leaves into the gutters and makes a mess. We've trimmed away branches so that it doesn't keep scraping the house. But we haven't taken it down: it's the favorite shelter for one of the cats when she gets caught in a storm and cannot get our attention to open the door.

2. My Christmas-tree garden has given us what it can through the years. Many have been harvested. The rest are overgrown. So we are in need of a tree.

Hey! Let's combine those two problems into one grand solution!
3. What if we cut the top off the arbor vitae, and use it as our Christmas tree?

Guess what? It is NOT easy to cut the top off a tree with a dull bow-saw. (I know, I know. Who'd'a thunk it?) One person on a ladder, sawing and sawing away, up there in the sky. One person putting all his weight on a rope, trying to tilt the tree just a bit, so that gravity wouldn't cause the tree trunk to pinch the saw while it's sawing. One person holding the ladder for the person up in the sky. One person holding the flashlight... because of course we didn't manage to get the job done while the sun was still up.

When the top finally toppled down down down onto the ground, and we had to drag it around to the front door, we discovered that arbor vitae trees are a darn sight heavier than pines. I wonder how that's going to work with the tree stand??

I'm beginning to be skeptical that this is actually "one grand solution." But we'll know more when we try to bring it into the house tomorrow and start decorating. I hope it will turn out pretty anyway. Of course, with a kitten and a real tree... there's just no knowing how any tree would fare. At the moment, even a Real Tree Devotee might begin considering artificial....