The First Cut

mrG — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 21:47:36 -0500

You gotta cut 'em off under the snow. Some people, somebody here yesterday, cut it off up above, and that's the skirt, that's where you get the real span ...

We hadn't intended to be here. We'd set out thinking we do what we always do, or have done since the scouts stopped their fundraiser sales down at Kirkland's, and since the mid-way to Hepworth farm had stopped; maybe it's just a tradition gone out of fashion but damn it I like mine with a beginning and an ending, transient background to the stocks of Old Regulars we haul out every year.

up here we have 12-foot, some fifteen. you want to drive down around past the woodlot there. got the campground back there now, otherwise couldn't afford the insurance ...

We headed to the UPI in Hepworth, and as usual this time of year, they had a few stragglers. We passed on them, headed into town for lunch (got suckered again: gad, those McD sandwiches look so real ... but no, they taste just like everything else) some last mall-sifting, drop in on Santa, swing by the bowling alley, the Kinsmen have closed up shop, so we hit the lumber yard ... they have one, only one, it's 4-foot and nearly spherical, in fact, we can see someone had lopped off quite a diameter of trunk there at the top. "Maybe it had turned brown?". At the west-end nursery they also had just one, with a knarly base that would have to lose about 3-feet to fit into our stand -- a man May knew drove up as we were leaving, with a woman probably his mother, and we could tell they'd be a better home for this one. We push on, worst case is we go back to the UPI, but there is that sign up at the Three C's Campground ...

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The First Cut