Koi about you

Looking for a valintines greeting card.

You can buy the card at my greeting card shop.

Albion cow

Christmas past

I had a wonderful Christmas this year twenty plus family and friends. Some making the long trip south from Portland and staying for several days.

     When we were children we would go with my Dad to the tree lots he always pointed out the variety of trees. Saying  this is a Noble fir this is a Doug fir see how the needles grow flat on the branch. We always brought home a Doug Fir and it was my job to put the tree up and decorate it with him. We had a line of antique lights with Japanese lanterns and moon faces that never worked but we put it on the tree anyways. New years day I would help him take it down untangling the fishing line that  tied the tree to the wall. We would cut it up and burn the remnants in the fire place.

   I thought of our friend Don who selected a tree in January kept his eye on it all year and when Christmas rolled around the two of us would go with the pruning saw cut it down .I suspect he may have trimmed the trees through the year  because they were always perfect.

    I was smitten by a large selection of fake trees lined up in front of the thrift store and purchased one for seven dollars. I shoved the whole tree in the back of the van brought it home perfectly shaped. Not a branch bent under the weight of my heavy ornaments and it looked real enough. Yesterday I took the tree down one metal branch at a time and crammed it in to two gigantic boxes there was a hand full of plastic needles on the floor. I thought about how festive it had been when I would drag the tree out into the yard leaving a carpet of needles behind and set it on fire. Like fire works bringing in the new year.