Harvesting the Christmas Tree

There's a small plantation of Christmas tree conifers on the estate. Mike planted them as cover for the pheasants, but neither he nor the pheasants will miss one little tree. I put my chainsaw in the truck and Dakota came along for the ride.

We took the back road that goes through one of the tenant farmers' farm. They kindly let me raid their straw barn when the horses needed to be stabled and had no bedding. I stopped in on the way - milking time, so I knew someone would be in the parlour - to say thanks, and pay for the straw and another bag of barley to feed the sheep.

The back road leads to a track, which leads to a field. The trees are on the far side. The sheep were unperturbed to be sharing their field with the truck.
 

The trees are just the other side of the artichokes - another crop grown for pheasant cover.

Dakota amuses herself following the pheasants' scent while I head off to pick a tree.

There's a pretty good tree in here -

See it yet?

A quick swipe from the chainsaw and it was ready to come home with me. I crossed my fingers that it would fit in the truck.

Almost perfect. But the dog and the saw had to share the back seat on the way home -

Turn the sparse side towards the wall so no one sees it, add a few home made ornaments, some lights, and hey presto -

Ready when you are, Santa.