Yule Tree, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2012
by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
No snow buried the ground the day we cut the Winter Yule. Huffing and puffing, we took turns severing trunk from tangled roots. Last summer we had a landscaper install a French drain that streams into the concave hollow of a rain garden we will plant next spring. The energy company marked the lines before digging; that’s when we discovered the blue spruce growing over our gas line. It would have to be removed.
In mid-December, I said to Liz, “Let’s make the spruce our Yule tree.” The handsaw wasn’t far behind. The tree is almost 4 1/2 feet tall with a wide berth that tapers to a slight curve at the top. She grew from a seedling, probably dropped by a songbird that made a pit stop on the mature spruce nearby. Trunk rings indicate that it took six years for this tree to grow 52 inches with a one and 1/2 inch base. Trees are slow and deliberate. They are the slow walkers of the forest.
Growth Rings, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Tree lovers like Liz and I will travel great distances to see hardwoods, softwoods, evergreens, and conifers in their prime. We have visited the oldest red and white pines in Itasca State Park in northern Minnesota, birthplace of the Mississippi River. We have sweated under live oaks near Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home in Savannah, photographed an old gingko at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, and attended a community gathering celebrating the life and death of a 333-year-old Burr Oak near the Franklin Avenue bridge in Minneapolis. On a trip to New Mexico, I stood under the Lawrence tree painted by Georgia O’Keeffe at Kiowa Ranch. In Georgia, my mother and I talked family history under a ginkgo by the Old Government House that was planted in 1791 in commemoration of a visit by George Washington.
Saw, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Trees are important to the spiritual aspect of our lives. I can’t imagine a world without trees. Today we celebrate the longest night of the year, Winter Solstice. Tuesday we will celebrate Christmas. The blue spruce in our living room leaves an empty space in the garden. Though wistful when she fell, I am joyful that she gleams from our living room window at the darkest time of year. And that her summer-dried bark will be kindling for next winter‘s Solstice fire.
Home Grown Tree, Droid Shots, Minneapolis,
Minnesota,photo © 2012 by Liz Schultz.
All rights reserved.
-posted on red Ravine, Winter Solstice, December 21st, 2012
Beautiful post, thanks – I haven’t been commenting but want you to know I appreciate your thoughtful stories. This one is touching, I was wondering why you would cut down that little tree. It’s a poignant tale. Thanks for your work.
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AS long as she was going to have to fall, I think you made the right decision.
She will light your way into the next year, and then be your Yule log next winter…how blessed you, Liz and “little Sprucina” are. (how’s that for a name?)
Santa must have paused in Golden Valley on his way west, as one of his packages fell to the earth in Cody, Wyoming today,with a Minnesota return address on it! Serena could not wait until Christmas to open the outer box which was wrapped so well that even if the Mayans had been correct in their prediction, this package would have survived!
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Thank you for stopping by, Linda. I did feel a little sad when we were cutting the spruce down. It made me realize how disconnected we sometimes become when we buy our trees from lots. I imagine it used to be a holiday ritual for people to go out into the woods and cut their own trees. I’ve done that a few times, but it’s usually more than I am up for these days. I read your piece about the meaning of Christmas to your mother. It reminded me of the days of Christmas Clubs and simple but elegant holiday displays in department store windows. Your mother seemed like a big part of that old magic. Happy Holidays!
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oliverowl, so happy you received the package from Santa! He loves flying to Wyoming. You know what happens with the packages I box up? I’ll tell you why I wrap them that way. Every day I see the sad shape some packages are in when they arrive in our place of business (and I see a lot of them!). They have tears, rips, and dents. That makes me want to wrap the personal packages with great strength and care! And that’s why you receive them that way. I didn’t use the peanuts this year. Can’t stand those things!
About our tree, she is so lovely all lit up in the corner of our small domain. She makes me happy. You know what’s amazing is that there are about five or six other small trees in or next to that same garden space in the front yard. It must be a flyover area for the local bird population. They are not as big as Sprucina, but are beginning to gain ground. We were going to have the arborist take them out last year, but he said it wasn’t the right season. So we will dig them up in the Spring and give them to friends. There is just not enough room to let the cedars and blue spruce grow in that space. Happy Holidays, oliverowl. Miss you!
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Beautiful post about a beautiful tree, QM. 🙂
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Robin, thank you. Have been reluctant to take her down. Lights still sprinkling around the living room. Soon, she will be fuel for next year’s Winter Solstice fire. I have learned from her. Happy New Year.
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