Sawn down Sitka

The toes of this tree have spent the last 60 years buttressing themselves down into the ground, but with such shallow soil  we noticed the root plate was pulling away whenever the wind gusted. As it is situated just above the Christmas tree sales area the only solution was to fell it. 

It's been snedded along the trunk along with the top six feet of spiny foliage. So, this offcut will be my Christmas tree this year.  It's sparse, lop-sided and desperately prickly but it is still holding its cones as natural decorations.  I like the idea that when I sit looking at it of an evening, wrapped around with red and green fairy lights, I can think that only a few days ago it had red and green crossbills hanging upside down and eating their winter dinners of fir-seeds from it.
(Luckily, there's thousands more trees so no crossbill will go hungry this Christmas)