Christmas is now officially over

Today is April 29th. I finally got rid of our Christmas tree.

I burned it.

Allow me to describe the history of this fine tree.

I love the smell of pine tree in December. In order to get the freshest smell possible, I decided we should go to a tree farm and cut our own. So, back in early December, I loaded the family into the mini-van and we went "tree hunting." I was armed with a "half trap" (i.e. a saw) and we cut down a beauty at a local tree farm. It was about 7 feet tall.

It served us well. The smell was great for several days. After Christmas, it was stripped of all its adornments and thrown out onto the deck. It sat there until March, when it ended up below the deck. Until today....

I must first preface today's event by telling you about my neighbor. My neighbor is great, but he has, almost covertly, burned my trees from the last two years. I never got a chance to burn them myself. He has sneaked over, grabbed my tree and put a match to it. I was determined to not let that happen this year.

So, to the burning of 2007!!!!

I put the tree where my garden will be (after tilling it up using my neighbor's tiller). The tree was brown and very dry. I put one match to a group of needles.

That tree burned like nothing I've seen before. The ENTIRE tree (minus the trunk) was consumed within one minute. It was hot. Flames shot 10 feet in the air. It was awesome.

Last summer my family and I witnessed a massive forest fire in Glacier National Park. We watched from several miles away as trees literally exploded. Granted, they were not as dry (and dead) as my tree was, but today I got a pretty good idea of why forest fires are so dangerous.