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My childhood home was a Staten Island 1800’s farmhouse that ended up smack in the middle of development. I loved that little house, with it’s slanted but beautiful wood floors, steps up and steps down in almost every room, even the creepy stone foundation basement that had a huge hole in the side wall I was sure was either Jimmy Hoffa’s final resting place or the Grinch’s hibernation headquarters. Either way, nothing good was coming out of that hole in the wall. But a lot of good came out of being raised in that house – including the huge old oaks that surrounded it, close up.
At night I’d gaze out my little bedroom window at the big old outstretched branches. With a summer breeze, their rustle would lull me to sleep. I’d listen to the birds chirp and watch them flitter among the leaves in the early morning light. Our yard had an abundance of trees and we collected “itchy balls”, helicopters, and even fluffy mimosa tree blooms until those trees were removed due to disease. I imagined the big old oaks, in particular, standing as sentinels, guarding our family and pets. To this day it’s a sad thought that they were all removed when the house was eventually sold to developers – and develop, they did.
Here on this 1800’s farm – there are also an abundance of trees which we cherish. On either side of the house are tree groves – one is a pine grove and the other is mostly cedar with some others mixed in. We weren’t sure of the age of these groves until recently our 95 year old neighbor Margaret’s son told me he planted all those trees as seedlings about 45 years ago with the previous owner. He was paid .10 cents a tree and he was ten years old at the time.
The pine grove is my favorite – always fragrant with the scent of pine, soft needles on the ground. Pine roots grow shallow, and we have lost at least 10 trees in storms as the torrential rains and wind take them down. We’ve been planting new ones to replace what is lost.
The picture below is the same pine grove from the field behind it.
And the same grove in winter
On the other side of the house is the cedar grove with the horse barn and grazing fields behind it…
And.. behind those grazing fields is a new Christmas Tree grove the men of this family planted last week. We’ve toyed with the idea for years and my only issue is… once you’ve spent seven years growing those beautiful trees, I think it would be a little heartbreaking to chop them down. For that reason, I didn’t encourage it.
Nevertheless… the men persisted… and so, we now have a 125 saplings in the field behind the horses. In seven years they will be ready to adorn family christmas tree traditions for local people. They are douglas fir, and we have heard that’s a favorite of the deer around here. SO, up went the cedar poles found lying dead in the back woods, and deer fence will be installed around the little tender trees.
If you squint real hard and lean in, you might see all the little babies….. and our house down by the road in the background.
Speaking of trees – Do you put up a tree? A real one or fake? and when? Ours is done – and it’s fake. Not because I don’t love a real tree, but because we poisoned one of our dogs once – he drank the tree water in the stand and almost died. The $2000 bill to save him wasn’t fun either. SO… it’s a fake tree for us, and a warning for you – most of those tree farms use pesticides and fertilizers to keep those trees looking christmas tree ready. Be aware that that stuff runs down into the tree water in the stand and can poison your pets.
Because trees are my favorite decorative accent, I’ve got them all over the house… Aunt Virginia’s ceramic tree, that just about everyone who has ever done ceramics, especially in the 70’s and 80’s has made or was given as a gift from a relative who made it, …. well that tree goes in the man cave where the guy and I spend cold winter evenings doing a fairly decent job of ignoring each other’s politics.
In the kitchen I have a collection of bottle brush trees on the window sill.
Over the fireplace in the kitchen… with two wreaths my kids made many years ago with my mom, the retired teacher/crafter extraordinaire.
Found this pillow at Homegoods for $25 and it’s a big pillow…. love it! Oh, those trees…
And on my dining room table… these paper trees I found a lovely local shop, The Rustic Barn.
Back to Margaret, my 95 year old neighbor… She loves Christmas trees too and her son still puts one up for her every year. It needs to be a real one, and it needs to be put up on Christmas Eve, not before. That’s about the only thing Margaret and I don’t agree on – seems to me the season for THE TREE starts right after Thanksgiving and is over shortly after Christmas. By New Years I’m chomping at the bit to get that thing down and put away if I haven’t already. I do know my own grandmother followed the same tradition as Margaret . My mother’s childhood tree went up Christmas Eve and was decorated while the children slept. They woke up to a Christmas House on Christmas morning. There is something lovely about that, too.
Margaret actually had her 95th birthday yesterday. For years we haven’t lit up the tree out front because it got so big we couldn’t reach anywhere near the top with our tractor, the way we used to. Then we hired a company and oh-boy-too-expensive. So it sat without lights for a few years. This year the boyz discovered a lift we could rent from the local hardware store and so we lit it up again, called Margaret and told her to look out her window, which is directly across the street.
So there it is, for the love of the tree. I hope this holiday season bring you joy and peace and shared good times with those you love.
Till soon, friends –
