Taking My Tree to Be Recycled
I love real Christmas trees for the holidays. I love the way they look, and the way they fill the house with the scent of pine. Every year we put up three trees in our house, two are artificial, and one is a real tree that we put in our living room. So far it's holding up pretty well, but next week we will have to take all the ornaments and lights off of it, and send it off to get mulched. I enjoy putting the tree up, taking it down... not so much. You end up with pine needles everywhere. We used to just put ours out on the curb and the Town of Union would pick it up. But now, we have to bring it to Grippen Park in Endicott where they turn the trees into mulch. We only live a couple of blocks from Grippen, but it's a pain in the ass to throw the tree in my SUV and drive it there because you are cleaning pine needles out of the car for months to come. No matter how many times you vacuum, you still end up with needles stuck in the carpeting. Even if you put down an old blanket or towel, it still leaves a mess.
One year I had a brilliant idea. I tied our real tree to the back of my old car and dragged it down the street and around the corner to Griffin Park. My wife took the picture above and said something like; 'I never felt like such a redneck in my life'. A woman following behind us in a van grabbed her cell phone and started videotaping the whole thing. I'm sure it ended up on the web somewhere, and who knows, it might have won her the top prize on America's Funniest Home Videos. But at least I didn't have to vacuum out my car ten times.
If you need info on where to take your tree, check out Traci's blog below.