Bit of Ivory

I just realized I’ve never explained my other pine-tree fetish: that of the Pinion Pine. Since I’m too tired to think of anything else to blog, I might as well, because who knows? Enquiring minds might just WANT to know. Although I doubt it.

Pinion Pines are the best smelling pine trees in the world. No, they don’t smell like butterscotch, they smell like pine. To me, they smell like Christmas. We’ve had Pinion Christmas trees for as long as I can remember. They’re not very pretty– they’re a kind of lighter green than you’d expect, their branches are thick and point up rather than out, and their needles are really sharp– but they smell SOO good. We love coming home from Church and getting that first wiff of Pinion pine as you walk in the door. We also love vacuuming up the dead needles, because then the vacuum smells good for a couple of weeks.

The only problem is, Pinons are disappearing. Not that they’re going extinct, but Christmas Tree lots don’t carry them anymore. We haven’t been able to find a Pinion for the past two years. To us, the whole purpose in having a live tree is because it smells good, and Douglas Firs, etc., don’t smell good. So we bought an artificial tree. It’s only temporary though– my dad’s been so busy with this project he’s been working on for the last 4 years that we’re lucky we had a tree at all. But the project is almost finished (it has to be ready for October General Conference– that’s a Mormon thing, for you non-Mormons), so this year, we can finally get a Pinion again. How, you say? We’re going to buy a tree permit. In Utah you can buy a permit for about $10 and cut your own tree. I’ve been researching, and most of the areas that allow harvesting have Pinions in the area. So we can trek up to the mountains and cut ourselves a Pinion Pine.

Now I’m all excited for Christmas, and it’s only July. Phooey.