Cohesive Pieces: Christmas Tree Cutting

Montana weather is so unpredictable.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving is when we always try to go cut our Christmas tree, but some years (like last year) there is so much snow we can't even get our four-wheel drive vehicles into the mountains just a few miles away from home.

First weekend in December, 2010

Last year there was so much winter we had to wait another week just to get be able to drive on the roads outside of town. Even then, we did a lot of walking to get into areas with trees. The snow in many of the places we usually just drive was too deep to get through with trucks.

But this year it was like a nice spring afternoon– sunshine, mud and all.

Thanksgiving weekend, 2011


KaNana even changed from her snowboots to her water boots before we left since they were much more appropriate. Lex didn't want to change his. He said he had "water feet" whenever I told him to get out of all the puddles– whatever that means. After a few hours in his wet clothes I think it started to feel a little more like winter.

We had a lot of cousins ready to help. I think there were 18-19 kids. Some of the "kids" put themselves in charge of the four-wheelers.

Azia ready to cut down some trees (pink ax & all)

A lot of adolescent boys with four-wheel drive. A little scary.

The little boys wanted a turn too.

And the first graders were actually busy working. In search of perfect trees. . .

They found a couple, cut them down, and loaded them up into the truck.

I think we'll keep them around.

Lex did a bit of looking for trees too. He liked this one

I told him it looked too big. He told me it wasn't too big at all. It was really good. I asked him if he thought it would fit in our house. He just looked up again and shook his head no. "But it's really good. Not too big at all."

So maybe that fitting in the house thing just wasn't one of his deal breakers.

We had a little fire for breaks in the tree hunting.