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Over in Ravena, we found him, it was a day fought with glory, sadness, and peril. But we were victorious. |
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We went right to work and felled the feral beast. We did not recognize just how heavy he was, and it took all our might to get him dragged out of the field. |
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Me, being quite exhausted after the felling. |
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Phinneus barely fit through the binding machine. It took 4 of us to wrestle him through. He made it though and no branches broke off. Here it is on my car. |
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Dad would have yelled at me for loading like this, the roof was bowed in and I was afraid the bouncing weight would crack the glass. |
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We were lucky. It was about this time that I realized I would not be able to do this alone. We called Dean to help as he's big and strong. And Phinneus weighs over 200 pounds! |
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Phinneus loaded into the tree stand. |
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Good thing I made this stand big! It doesen't look that big here, but the stand accepts an 8" diameter trunk, and I actually had to shave the trunk down to get the tree to even fit into it! |
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The tree stood up. Jaime standing next to him for scale. It was a big tree! |
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After cutting the binding. It really was like the Griswolds, we cut about 6 inches of netting and then whoom! The tree exploded out all over the room. At his widest point, Phinneus is 9 feet wide! |
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He really took over the room! |
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The view from the outside. All you see is tree pretty much. |
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Alex was enjoying the day. |
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I dilligently went to work with the lights. |
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Jasmine was interested. |
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I managed to do the lights all by myself this year, I had a new technique of wrapping them over my neck. Luckily I didn't get electrocuted. |
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Almost done! |
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But time for a pizza break! |
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Jasmine wanted some too! |
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But she didn't get anything except a petting. |
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Yep. |
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Phinneus all lit up. This year's effort used 3,417 lights. 50 short of last year. But this tree was definately more evenly and well lit. |
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Jaime getting the ornaments ready. |
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Phinneus is indeed, awesome. |
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Jaime preparing. |
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We needed a ladder to reach the upper eskalonge of the tree. |
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Jaime doing some bow action. |
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Close up shot. |
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The tree totally dominates the room! |
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You have to go all the way into the dining room to be able to see it all. |
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View from the outside. |
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We again achieved the "Window full of lights" effect. You can't really tell there's a tree in there. |
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Unless you look closely! |
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Very closely. |
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Witht he flash. |
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Without the flash. Nicer. |
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More detail... |
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Looking up at the star. |
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Then I started moving the camera around... |
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One more detail shot, |
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And one more full shot. And that's the story of Phinneus, our third named tree and 5th tree we have got together. It will truly live in the annals of memory. We love you Phinneus. Thanks also again to Dean who helped erect this monster! |