Christmas Tree Cutting

Last year at this time we went Christmas tree hunting and came home with a fir. On my subsequent blog post, I stated that I preferred the beautiful fir over the lowly pinyon. I did, however, have some difficulty settling on the species, and was almost universally lambasted for my ignorance. (Read this to relive my shame.) To avoid a repeat display of taxonomic anguish this season, we went back to, yep, the lowly pinyon. It has two needles, and can be nothing other than a Pinus edulis. See the attached picture to view it in its native environment just before cutting.

Tree identification resolved, then, one might expect that our day proceeded without incident. Well, one would be wrong. (Warning to Forest Service Line Officers: Do Not Read the Rest of This Post.) You see, we bought a Christmas Tree permit from the Dixie National Forest only to find, after it was somewhat too late, that the permit was only good where you bought it. If you bought it in Escalante, which we did, you could use it on the Escalante Ranger District, but not on the Cedar City Ranger District, which is where we live. Now, here at Rural Ways, we are law abiding folk, but let's just say that we abide more by the spirit of the law than the letter. And, let us say further, that I suspect that we were not precisely on the Escalante Ranger District when we absconded with this pinyon tree. Finally, let me also say that a quick, quiet getaway is somewhat difficult when one is thrashing through the oak brush in possession of an eight foot pine tree. Fortunately, we got the thing home and disguised it with a bunch of lights and red balls and stuff. If we can keep the feds off our trail for about the next two weeks, we should be ready to destroy the evidence.