the annual winter harvest...

we have been cutting a christmas tree here on broadbeest farm since 1988...

soy, sitting on the tree so it won't get away--'91...

soy and i mid '90s            ...            sadie and i late '90s

all of us in the '00s...

bringing it home in the '10s...

this year it was fun to have sadie and otavio looking for theirs and sawyer joining the hunt and photographing the event. we missed hannah and her keen eye for trees!

note: in brazil, december is obviously summer!

the snow cover helped fun the spirit of gathering the tree even though it was a warm-ish day. we found sadie's and otavio's "little" one first. after cutting it and a proud 'family' photo, i handed o the clippers with a warning, "careful." he didn't know what i meant until after snipping a couple of branches, a chorus of "whoa-s...stop-s...and no-s..." rang out.


the tradition of 'trimming' the tree, at least for the broadley side of the broadbeests, is restricted to hanging things on it, not cutting off unruly branches.


finding pam's and my tree, followed another broadley tradition, that of spotting about a half-dozen possibilities, tromping from one to another--and circumnavigating each--and debating their finer points. remember, these are 'wild' trees, growing under a much taller canopy, which pretty much means they will be fairly skimpy. a "charlie brown-er" as pam's dad used to call them.






this year, it didn't take too long to come to consensus on which tree would make 'the cut', so to speak. sawyer, creative with perspective again, caught the moment.









with trees on shoulders, we were hiking out of the woods in practically no time. we wrapped the one headed to windsor in a tarp while sadie figured out how to lower the seat between the trunk and back, so the bundle would fit in.


the happy couple waved as they drove off, dreaming of stringing lights and hanging decorations.

once i got our tree cut to size and into the stand, soy and i put the lights on after a bowl of soup. he and pam took up hanging decorations and soon enough the scene was set. not too much later sadie texted their version--canaan on the left, windsor to the right.

tis the season--to go outside and play! or in this case cut...