Rachel Wise: There's no life left in our Franken pine monster

Rachel Wise

Well, that's another Christmas done and dusted then. Time to recover, rehydrate, fish all the bits of Christmas paper and party hats from under the furniture, eat leftover ham for a few days and contemplate disentangling the decorations from the Christmas tree.

The Christmas tree, having shed its needles on the floor and lost a few decorations to the cat and the grandchildren, is looking very subdued and it's about now I feel guilty for having wrested it from its parent tree and dragged it in to shrivel up in the corner of the lounge.

It's a branch off a much-abused wonky pine tree that lives down the road. It was wonky to begin with but once we started robbing it of a branch each year, from which to dangle decorations, it became a bit of a Franken-pine. It sprouts new branches in retaliation but they come out in directions that I'm sure pine branches aren't meant to.

Last year, when we went to do our Christmas pruning, someone had got there before us and removed the best and bushiest of the tree's many appendages. I was affronted that someone else had found "our" tree but they must have realised their mistake when they got home -- none of the Franken-pine's branches will stand upright, so we have to anchor them to the window-catches with pieces of baling twine -- and this year we had the tree all to ourselves.

The year before last I had it to myself entirely, as everyone was too busy to come and play woodcutter with me. In the end I went out by myself, armed with the axe, loppers and pruning saw.

I didn't hook the trailer up, as the track to the pine is dead-end, one-way only and takes some fancy backing and turning to get out of. I am too short to see out the back of the Jeep to successfully back the trailer so I thought I'd lash the branch to the roof rack. I'd taken along several horse-lead ropes specially.

After winding my way through the blackberry to the tree, I discovered this woodcutter thing is over-rated. Who knew that an axe could just bounce off a tree limb and leave barely a dent? Clearly, I had missed something in previous years, in my capacity as branch-chooser and supervisor. A few futile blows later I went for the saw instead.

It turns out that sawing is hard work, too. I sawed until the saw got stuck, wrangled it free and then sawed again. And again. My arms got tired and I got a bit puffed. I think the saw was blunt, or broken, or badly designed. A combination of sawing and gnawing at the thing with the loppers eventually freed the branch and I dragged it to the Jeep and went to fling it on to the roof rack.

It didn't fling, so I tried hefting. Hefting was unsuccessful so I tried power-lifting. Then I tied a rope on and put it through the roof rack and hauled. Nothing much happened.

The only thing left to do was tie it to the towball and drag it home, which I did. There wasn't much traffic and I don't think anyone noticed, much.

Of course when I arrived home the Christmas tree had lost a little substance. The tarseal had grated it down to half a tree but the flat side meant it fitted nicely against the wall so I counted it as a win. And it took less tinsel to decorate.

This year's tree is destined for the "burning pile" in the paddock, where it will lie until the fire ban is lifted sometime around April.

There will be, as there always is, one forgotten bit of tinsel still attached, which will lift in the breeze and spook the horses until the sun fades it and makes it less scary.

Last week's Christmas tree will fuel autumn's bonfire and maybe help char a few tinfoil-wrapped spuds and marshmallows.

Which is, I guess, recycling. And that's a good thing, right?

* Rachel Wise is a lifestyle block owner and community newspapers editor.

* Eva Bradley is taking a break. Her column will return on January 16.