(The Official Refuge Farm tree, 2013, courtesy of the Methodist Church yard sale in Arlington, circa 2009. I had not looked in the box until I started work on cleaning out the office attached to the garage yesterday).

I glanced at the watch yesterday afternoon and realized daylight was going to run out on me, just like the clear sky that permitted me to move some of the debris field in the garage out onto the gravel between the garage and the barn and get at some of the things that could be moved without a bulldozer.

The key to this is the barn. I have an impressive pile of now-empty boxes and packing materials over there. I have moved the bookcases into the office, and hope to do the same thing with the filing cabinets later today, even if I have to stay under cover.

The wait is over, BTW. The snow has started and is starting to turn the deck white, though the pastures are still a dull brown. We will see sleet this afternoon, ice on the roads, and more snow later.

I am not getting on the highway until it is all gone.

I used a strategic pause to drive over to Croftburn Market to stock up on a couple necessities and fill the Panzer with gas, just in case this does not go as predicted. When I got back, I went back to the random re-distribution of junk, hoping to clear a space for the Ford inside the garage.

I found some interesting stuff- a thousand rounds of ammunition in a useful caliber I had forgotten about- Ka-ching! And some great books I am obviously never going to get to in this life.

Then I ran across- literally- a box that I had not seen in a couple years. When I got up I realized it was the product of pure serendipity, and had looked at it since the nice lady on the side yard of the Methodist Church in Arlington offered me a swell deal on a pile of things that I did not need.

I was coming back from the dry cleaners, and there is nothing I like better than a yard sale, which accounts for why The Farm looks like it does at the moment.

One thing I did like was the Hudson’s Bay woolen trade blanket that now rests in the trunk of the Panzer as part of the go-package- it was worth the ten bucks I had in my wallet alone. There was another batch of crap- including the fine tall silver trophy was another winner: Arlington County Church Bowling League 1948, apparently retired by the Arlington Forest Methodists in 1956, since that is when the engraving stopped.

Anyway, the box that wound up on the bottom of the pile also contained a mass of shredded green plastic wrapped into stout wire with a brace of poles that fit together and drilled out to accept the wire ends of the faux pine.

“Landfill?” I thought. This looked like something I did not need. Still, worth seeing if there was any value to it, this artificial Christmas tree that must have decorated the young congregation’s sanctuary in the years immediately after World War II.

It was time I did not have for a piece of junk I did not need. Still, it was sort of interesting to figure out how the thing was supposed to be integrated, and before I knew it, I had a Christmas tree. I liked it so much that I carted it up to the farmhouse and set it up in the corner near the bright blue corner hutch.

In the process of bending it to look relatively straight, I noticed there was still a tag attached to topmost bough. It told me the tree had a name: “Charlie Brown Tree.”

That animated special first appeared in 1965, the one with the round-headed kid and the bedraggled tree. The theme of the special was that with the right amount of love, anything is possible in the season of Peace.

“Charlie Brown Tree. Lights included! Please Give It a Good Home with Lot’s of Love. $1.”

(Don’t know if I qualify as a good home or not. But the tree fits raffishly with the rest of Refuge Farm.)

How can you beat that, I thought. Actually, the thing looked a little like the Norfolk Pines we used to get in Hawaii: spare, but purposeful.

There was a pocket of other decorations in that part of the rubble. What the hell. In for a penny, in for a pound. I dragged a couple strings of lights up to the house and found an extension cord to power them as the early dusk transitioned to darkness.

I will be damned, I thought. It looks positively cheery around here. Let it snow!

Merry Christmas!

(Pre-Dawn Farm. Snow coming.)

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

PS: Go Green! Well Done, Spartans! Big Ten Champs!