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How to pick the perfect Christmas tree

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How to pick the perfect Christmas tree

Does Southern California have seasons? Angelenos would argue sure. There’s earthquake season (trace: That one is year-round). If we’re fortunate, some years we get a wet season. And we’ve got a fall season, although nearly the one leaves that change coloration are palm tree fronds that catch on fireplace.

And now, nicely into sad-about-early-sunset season, we’re on the brink of have fun the vacation season. Residents of the Golden State naturally gravitate towards vegetation and sparkly issues, so after all Southern Californians love Christmas bushes.

In 2020, The Instances spoke to consultants about methods to purchase an actual Christmas tree. Listed below are a few of the ideas they shared, plus extra on how to select a tree and maintain it merry and shiny till the brand new yr.

How a lot does an actual Christmas tree price?

The common worth of a reside Christmas tree was $69.50 in 2021, in keeping with a survey carried out by the Nationwide Christmas Tree Assn., a commerce group that represents tree farmers and associated companies. Anticipate to pay anyplace from $50 to $200, relying on the place you purchase your tree and what sort and measurement of tree you need.

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For those who don’t have a tree stand already, you’ll need to purchase a kind of as nicely, both on the lot together with your tree or forward of time. These will set you again one other $20 to $100, relying on measurement and performance. It’s additionally conventional to tip the employee who helps you tie your tree to the highest of your automobile.

You should buy your tree from a big-box retailer, which is able to in all probability be on the cheaper facet. However that’s as a result of these bushes are typically decrease high quality, stated Brandon Helfer in a 2020 interview with The Instances. He’s the proprietor of Mr. Jingle’s Christmas Bushes, which sells reside bushes at a number of areas round Southern California. Christmas tree heaps like Mr. Jingle’s often have nicer bushes at a better worth level.

Some Christmas tree heaps are cash-only — in case you don’t usually carry money, name to ask earlier than you head over.

What Christmas tree measurement do I want?

By way of tree top, you need your ceiling top minus a minimum of a foot so there’s area for the tree topper. Don’t neglect to measure the width of the area the place the tree will stand to ensure your chosen evergreen will match.

How do I choose an actual Christmas tree?

Ask a employees member on the lot which kinds of bushes can be found. Most California heaps may have Douglas and noble firs, which develop on the West Coast. Douglas firs are gentle inexperienced with positive needles and are usually cheaper and extra aromatic. They’re additionally recognized for not lasting as lengthy and shedding copious quantities of needles. Noble firs have thicker blue-green, upward-growing needles and are costlier; they may keep their good cheer longer and necessitate much less sweeping, however will not be as aggressively aromatic.

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Before you purchase, ask when the tree was reduce down. You both desire a tree that was reduce not too long ago or one which has been saved within the chilly for preservation.

When you’ve chosen your selection and know the overall measurement you’re on the lookout for, it comes down to non-public choice.

Some small concerns: If the tree goes to sit down in a nook, solely the half you’ll be capable of see must look good. The extra branches you have got, the extra ornaments and strings of lights you’ll have to placed on it.

Do not forget that perfection doesn’t exist in nature: If you need a perfect-looking tree, purchase a pretend one. A part of the appeal of an actual tree is the realness: the wonky needle sample, the errant bald spot, the jaunty angle of the topmost department. Like cats and canine, all Christmas bushes are good in their very own manner, and each deserves a loving — dare we are saying “fir-ever” — house.

When you’ve chosen your tree, ask a couple of tree shaker. It’s a tool that offers your tree a very good onerous shake, so all of the free needles hit the bottom on the lot as an alternative of in your lounge. Not each place may have one. The lot could supply to make a contemporary reduce of the trunk of your tree. If not, you’ll desire a noticed helpful at house. In both case, go away a minimum of 6 inches of trunk between the reduce and the place the branches begin. Some locations supply flame retardant or faux-snow flocking.

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Wherever you get your tree, it should have twine and somebody prepared that can assist you hoist your bounty onto your automobile’s roof and tie it down. Having an previous towel or blanket to place down first will shield your automobile, although it’s not obligatory.

How do I arrange my Christmas tree at house?

When you get the tree and the stand inside, it’s time to set it up. Some tree stands have a spike within the center on which to impale the tree; others use adjustable bolts or fasteners to carry it upright.

Mac Harman, who offered reside bushes for 9 years earlier than founding synthetic Christmas tree and ornament website Balsam Hill, stated in a 2020 interview that the optimum setting-up course of entails three individuals: one to carry up the tree, one to crawl beneath it to regulate the stand, and a 3rd standing throughout the room to evaluate straightness. However you may make it work with just one or two.

How do I maintain my Christmas tree contemporary?

The important thing to a contemporary, completely happy Christmas tree is preserving it hydrated. The water degree in your tree stand ought to all the time be 2 to three inches greater than the bottom of the trunk. Care to your tree by checking the basin day-after-day or each different day and including water as wanted. Bushes suck up water in the course of the day and let a few of it again down at night time, so don’t fill the basin all the best way otherwise you’re risking a messy overflow. Like different houseplants, a tree will respect being misted, although watch out about mixing water with strings of electrical lights.

Your tree will keep more energizing if it’s away from sources of sunshine, drafty air and fire-hazard-creating warmth sources.

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A High Stakes Obstacle Course, for Dogs

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A High Stakes Obstacle Course, for Dogs
The agility dogs, who jump through a hoop, go through a tunnel, weave through poles and deal with various other obstacles like a pause table, are judged on the time it takes them to complete the course and how many mistakes they make. And the whole thing is done with a handler running alongside them.

The dogs in the event, which has typically been dominated by Border collies, are grouped by height rather than breed, creating a more chaotic vibe than the rehearsed perfection of the regular dog show.

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Pearl Jam Guitarist Mike McCready Falls Hard Offstage During Guitar Solo

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Pearl Jam Guitarist Mike McCready Falls Hard Offstage During Guitar Solo

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My Octopus Teacher's Craig Foster dives into the ocean again in 'Amphibious Soul'

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My Octopus Teacher's Craig Foster dives into the ocean again in 'Amphibious Soul'
Cover of Amphibious Soul

The film My Octopus Teacher tells the story of a man who goes diving every day into the underwater South African kelp forest and forms a close relationship there with an octopus. That man — the diver, and also the filmmaker — was Craig Foster, who delighted millions of nature lovers around the world and took home the 2021 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Now in a new book, Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World, Foster describes the entire ecosystem of the Great African Seaforest at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, and the transforming role it has played in his quest to seek wildness. As the book’s amphibious title hints, Foster is as much (maybe more) at home in the ocean as he is on land.

Foster’s incredible engagement with seaforest creatures comes through beautifully in this account. Every day for months, he recounts, he “visited the crack in the rock where a huge male clingfish lived,” and the fish became quite calm in his presence. “Returning to the same places, watching for subtle changes, and continuing to ask questions replenishes my curiosity,” he writes.

Foster’s profound tie to place reminds me of birders who closely attend to nature in their own yard or local park. Indeed, Foster underscores that any of us can find wildness where we live: “We can all develop a more playful relationship with nature, whether that means collecting crisp leaves or smooth rocks to use in our artwork or watching the squirrel perform acrobatics outside our window.”

Nature’s healing power is a focus for Foster and an immensely personal one. Before he had any thoughts of My Octopus Teacher, he was burned out on long grinding hours of film-making work. He found relief in cold immersion, both in the ocean and in a home-made box containing icewater. Later though, after the immense global attention to the octopus film and therefore to him, he suffered from insomnia so pronounced that some nights he managed only 10 minutes of sleep. His body and mind were breaking down and felt a strong pull to find his way back to the wild.

To become fully immersed in the story of his quest for wild healing, it’s necessary to go with Foster’s flow and accept his constant, near-mystical reverence for “our ancestors.” I read with a wild-seeking heart his belief that modern-day humans can recover an ancestral link to wild creatures — but also, inescapably, I read with an anthropologist’s sensibilities. Is it possible to replicate “humanity’s natural state?” Is there a singular way to describe our ancestors’ experiences with animals? Given the long sweep of human evolution, which ancestors exactly?

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Might there be a hint of romanticizing the past here? Foster writes of “our nonviolent origins” and adds that it was “only with the advent of agriculture that the reciprocity with the wild that we’d enjoyed for some 300,000 years began to break apart — and with it, our psyches.” Yet there’s serious anthropological scholarship that argues warfare began 200,000 or 300,000 years ago, far longer ago than the start of agriculture around 12,000 years ago.

A stronger thread in the book is the powerful connection to nature that comes with tracking. At first, I thought Foster meant looking only for animal tracks in the dirt, mud, or snow, but his definition is more comprehensive, and eye-opening: “any clue left by any creature or plant, sand or rock.” Running water also may leave a track, or lightning hitting a tree.

For an amphibious soul, the height of joy comes with underwater tracking: Foster taught himself to see tracks of mollusks in the sand atop the back of a stingray, or an octopus’s predation marks on a shell. How magnificent to see the undersea universe in such detail! Once again, Foster broadens out from his own experience to encourage the rest of us: “Just start small and chip away,” Foster advises. In addition to looking for ground tracks, “seek out marks on plants, trees, rocks, or walls.”

Foster’s writing is rooted in his own learning from an array of mentors, including Indigenous individuals, and in a wish to share and spread his joy in nature. A spirit of generosity suffuses the book.

It’s probably thanks to an octopus that Amphibious Soul is out in the world. Foster invites us now to recognize the intrinsic value of the Great African Seaforest ecosystem as a whole — and of all ecosystems that enshrine wildness.

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Barbara J. King is a biological anthropologist emerita at William & Mary. After writing about animal grief and love, and how all of us may bring about greater compassion for animals, she is now writing about cats for her 8th book. Find her on X, formerly Twitter @bjkingape

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