The tree

It is a perfect day for tree trimming: we have a storm moving in, and winter storm watch will be in effect for the next 24 hours. They are forecasting snow tonight and tomorrow, but I am not holding my breath. It would be too much fun.

I love the tree that Lucy gave us last year. It is the perfect size and it looks real. It even sheds like a real tree ... If only it smelled like one too. Before I would have scoffed at an artificial tree, but now I prefer it to killing one, even if it was raised as a Christmas tree. As a kid I did not realize that our little Christmas trees really grew up in a forest in Scandinavia, rather than being cultivated. And when I lived in Montana we cut down a tree in the forest and it pained me every time we drove by that spot afterward. What was I thinking?


There are not a lot of ornaments on the tree, but what is there all has meaning. Most of them are gift from friends, then and now, and some I bought on special trips. Good heavens, some of them are starting to be antiques ... This year the ornaments whichI got when I took my parents around Oregon have special meaning, as well as the dragonfly that was my mother's special gift.

Decorating the rest of the ranch is a bit of a challenge. It is all so big, and unless you put up really big stuff or lots of it, it loses itself. I did hang up the wreath that Dan welded from old horse shoes so you see it when you come up the drive, but even the horse's stockings are but a drop in the bucket. I guess to them what goes in it is all that counts. Better get to baking horse cookies, and some soup for a cold evening.