Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Travis


Among the most depressing sights of the holiday season are discarded Christmas trees. I'm especially depressed by the ones that never get purchased -- that just get piled up in some parking lot on Dec. 25, awaiting the mulcher.

Last year, not wanting to contribute to this campaign of arboricide, we bought a live, potted Christmas tree. We named him Travis, and decorated him with star-shaped lights and ridiculous ornaments. He held up without complaint through the holiday season, and after New Year's -- stripped of those burdensome decorations -- he lived near the window in our spare bedroom.

Keeping Travis alive until we could put him in the ground always seemed like a race against time, in my book. He showed no real signs of ill health -- just shed a few needles from his interior branches -- and in fact he grew a little sprig of new green. Still, I thought he would die any minute. It seemed unlikely that a conifer could stay alive indoors for months, even under the best of care.

The problem is, you can't plant a tree at Christmas time. The ground is too hard, the weather too bitter. We had to wait until the spring thaw and the last of the big snowstorms.

Last weekend, we decided Travis' time had finally come. We bought a shovel and lugged him out to the edge of the field behind our apartment complex -- an area already populated by pines, albeit a different variety. A perfect space waited there for Travis, and indeed, he seems happier in the wild, a Christmas tree no more.

Whew!

3 comments:

Reya Mellicker said...

Travis is an excellent name for a Christmas tree. That huge tree that fell across the sidewalk during our snowstorm (I posted a pic of it) was a Christmas tree originally planted in 1960. It grew to 50' tall. Trees are badasses, they are.

The way you feel about Christmas trees is how I feel about cut flowers. They are like chickens packed into their hothouses, then killed at the height of their beauty. I've never liked cut flowers.

Reya Mellicker said...

I mean like factory farmed chickens.

Barbara said...

Long live Travis, the live tree! It's a shame so many other trees ended up as bark chips when the world needs more living trees.

Keep us posted on Travis's progress as he adapts to life outdoors.