Monday, January 12, 2009

A couple of days before Winter Present Tree Day, Daisy and I stopped by a tree lot to pick up a tree. We wandered up and down the aisles, with Daisy eagerly bounding up to each tree vehemently proclaiming that one to be the best tree, one after another. We finally agreed on one and paid some underpaid man to strap it to our car. I dragged it into the house. It looked like this:



Ok, it's a little lopsided, but I didn't grow up in households that celebrated Christmas. This is what you get when you send out a Jew (and an ex one at that) to buy a Winter Present Tree Day Tree. Daisy and Hank decorated the bad boy and it happily sat in our house for several weeks, vaguely disguising our lack of Christianity.

This weekend it was time to get rid of it, but rather than drag it to the curb and hope that the city recycling service was still picking up trees, I decided to take care of it myself. With my chipper!

I hauled the tree out to the small deck off our living room and pitched the tree over the railing into the backyard below. Then I grabbed a small saw, some heavy duty clippers, and my chipper. I clipped the branches off the main trunk, sawed the trunk into logs small enough to fit into our wood-burning stove and then stuffed all the branches into the clipper.

Oh. Man. The next time you get frustrated at the holiday season, try cramming your tree, the primary symbol of the holidays, into a noisy and powerful chipper. It's VERY cathartic. I know some people put up nativity and manger scenes, but I did my own reenactment of Judas goes to Fargo.

But don't get all concerned that I'm trying to destroy Christmas. Recall that it wasn't a Christmas tree, it was a Winter Present Tree Day Tree. K?

Anyway, by the time I was done, I had a small pile of little logs and an equally small pile of chipper debris all ready for the compost heap. You can see how small it chipped down into below. I put a brick on the other side of the chipper debris for size comparison:


Nifty, eh? I can't wait for next year!

11 comments:

Avery Gray said...

You've never been sexier to me than you are right now.

nrd2 said...

ag took the wind right out of my sails. i can't even remember what i was going to say!

Mike said...

Avery, soooo, on a scale from 1 to 10, that makes me a 1.1? Sweet. I'll take it.

Nrd2, I'll just assume it was something witty.

Avery Gray said...

Oh no. I'm talking a good solid 1.7. Yes, that sexy!

nrd2, my apologies. I'll try to keep my wanton comments to myself henceforth.

Mike said...

Avery, dang, I didn't realize you cyberchicks were so easily fooled.

Anonymous said...

You know, nativity and manger scenes would chip up very well indeed....

I have worms in the yard for composting. I love those Little Red Wiggler Worm castings things. Slower, but awesome.

But a Chipper... Man... A girl can dream. First I'll figure out my Dremel. Then I'll go for the big guns. Of course I'll need trees in the yard taller than Mr. Big (6'6" tall) or a Real Holiday Tree (we got one 80% off after Christmas a few years ago). Don't some lawn mowers chip too? Or am I watching too much late night tv?

Mike said...

Yo Meg, it sounds like you've got it all planned out there. Nice. And I think the lawnmowers typically mulch up the lawn clippings rather than chip up big debris, but my familiarity with lawn mowers is pretty small. I've only bought one in my life and it was for back when I only had a postage-stamp sized lawn, which I hated.

patsy said...

hey mike, I don't think you can be a x-jew that is your race right?
When you burn the logs you will have a good fire, don't burn the house.

Mike said...

Hi Patsy. Judaism is a religion, so I can definitely be an ex-Jew now that my parents are no longer able to drag me to the synagogue.

Mike said...

Patsy, you're right that Israel would accept me as a citizen, but I think that says much more about their wacky immigration rules than my beliefs or culture. I think the term ex-Jew correctly conveys that I once practiced the faith (although only as an obedient child and never as a believer) and no longer do.

And, even I were to accept that it's a nationality as much as a religion (although I'm not much of a Zionist) that does NOT mean that Judaism is a race You can become a Jew, Patsy, but you'll never be an Asian.

patsy said...

oh well I know I can't win with you but perhaps the word is Hebrew not jew since jew means from the tribe of juda and you could be from the tribe of Dan.
what ever you call yourself you are OK with me.