The Annual Tree Expedition

We had great expedition out to the tree farm this morning to cut and load up over 200 white pines for our holiday lights show. There was great teamwork in abundance and the progress was amazing. We ultimately secure most of these cut trees on stakes and will have them decorated with lights this upcoming Saturday. Some of the trees are simply used for screening or sacrificed for greens. The process when very well with our convoy of six vehicles (including five trailers). We had plenty of room to load these trees up and were able to get them back in good order and get them to their locations for Marv and Terry to secure with wiring (see to the left). Thanks to Ron B., Ron W., John, Mike, Jim, Dave T., Dave J., Polly, Peggy, Larry, Bob A., Bob C., Roger, Charlie, Rollie, Terry, Maury, Jerry, Dick H., Kurt, Doug and the dog.

While we were gone, Marv and Terry put up more displays and lights while Marianne worked on a combination of lights and gardening. Janice worked on garden clean-up and later tested more lights. Little Jerry was here to do more pruning and clean-up and Urban stayed behind as well to continue his work on crabapple suckers in the color rooms garden. With the rest of this lights show up by this Saturday (see deer to the right!), we'll be able to start testing everything next week to "iron out the bugs." Nice shot below of the seed structures of the Northern sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium). I like this grass but we're seeing more reseeding over the years and those that grow it should be ready for babies popping up. This is a nice grass for dried arrangements and makes an interesting rattle once the seed heads dry and a breeze carries thru.