Merry Christmas!

The brats are celebrating on the other side of the world! Love you!! Don't those two brothers look just like peas in a pod!?

A couple of days ago I went back to the Dillon Library for pictures of their pine trees.

They look so thin, yellowed and even brown, I can't understand how people can ignore them. A few years ago, I knew a little girl who loved to play hide and seek in a grouping of evergreens. There was enough space in between to weave around them, running at top speed, invisibly.

I indulged her in this game because she enjoyed it so much, even though it made me anxious because I was afraid that, should she decide to run off, I wouldn't realize until she could be already at quite a distance away.

This is because each tree was so dense, I couldn't see even a bit of color from her clothing when we were on opposite sides of a tree. Now, I challenge anyone to find a single evergreen in New Jersey that is that dense. Every one I can find, without exception, is so thin (if not bare) that it is easy to distinguish a person on the other side.

Naturally, there is an abnormal production of cones, and the lichen is colonizing the inner branches.

They started to decline noticeably a little over a year ago, and now it is so rapid that they surely can't be viable much past this season. This is a good venue to demonstrate how they are deteriorating because they are planted widely apart, enabling a good view of their condition.

Not a very cheerful holiday message, I'm afraid.

But if they're happy I'm happy!