By: Blonde Two
I went up to visit The Dartmoor Christmas Tree yesterday to see how he is coping with his new found fame. It was chilly and very windy so we only had a short conversation. Tree has one (rather unusual, but quite sweet) decoration so far this year, and mentioned that he would like some more.
My ‘bit of a worry’, is that Tree is not looking as healthy as he has in previous years. Just like in the book (surely you have all read it by now) Tree’s needles are a bit brown and he looks a bit scruffy. During the summer, Tree appeared to be doing rather well, he had lots of bright green new growth and looked quite the Tree-about-the-hill.
I am not sure what I can do to help him, apart from go up for a chat every now and again. If there are any tree experts (treeperts) out there, please could you give me some advice? I have a few ideas but am not sure what will work:
1. Sparkly lights – these usually cheer up inside Christmas trees but would they keep a moorland tree awake at night?
2. A mulch of mince pies and satsumas – this would definitely cheer me up but maybe trees prefer turkey and stuffing.
3. A tipple of the good stuff. We Blondes regularly take ginger wine or cherry brandy up to the tree, maybe we should share it.
All advice gratefully received, Tree is quite an experimental arbor and I am sure he will do his best to comply.
I hope you don’t mind a long comment, but perhaps you may like to read this Robert Frost poem to Tree – he was a big tree and nature fan.
Christmas Trees
Robert Frost, 1874 – 1963
A Christmas Circular Letter
The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, “There aren’t enough to be worth while.”
“I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.”
“You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.
He said, “A thousand.”
“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”
He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”
Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.
From Mountain Interval
That is fantastic, a story-in-a-poem. I will definitely read it to Tree. I think it will work! Thank you.
I think Tree needs his Angel for company!
Give him a hug from B2GM.
Well he won’t get gnawed by beavers – they don’t like conifers.
On a purely practical level, are his feet too wet?
Perhaps you should take him a couple of dozen rolls of kitchen towel?