White Pineology

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New Year's Day I found myself hurtling up Highway 95 towards the Canadian border. At least I think that was what I was doing. It was hard to think anything as I was in my brother's massive pickup truck which possesses a massive stereo system capable of pumping out massive amounts of bass.

Yep, my spine, ear drums, and grey matter all were massively vibrated that day.

Anyway, after spending an hour in the pickup thumping along to some old school beats with the bro and my darling daughter, well, I was somewhat relieved when we arrived at the parent's homestead.

Okay, I did have a lot of fun laughing about my brother's freshly installed fog lights, which we affectionately refer to as the Sun Guns. He put them in his truck as a defensive weapon against all the Hot Damn High Beams out there. Dang lights are getting bright...

Sun Guns aside, the trip to the parental abode was pretty fun and the visit was pretty great. We finally got to deliver the parent's Christmas presents a week late because they both came down with the plague, much like most of North Idaho, right at Christmas. It was sad.

The visit was not sad though, and one shining part of it, besides taking possession of the amazingly delectable peppermint yule log that Ma had constructed for our Christmas festivities, was collecting some White Pine needles.

White Pine needles have a TON of vitamin C, like five times the amount in lemons, so even though scurvy isn't really a thing any more, it sure is nice to know that we have an option lurking about in our woods that can ward it off. I'm not a health care professional so I would never offer any sort of advice in that department, but I do drink White Pine tea because I know that it makes me feel better when I am feeling all immuno-depleted.

Plus, my mom and dad have a ton of White Pine trees so it's always a fun time to wander out back with Ma and cut some needles for tea making. Their dog Lucy is always around to be a complete derp and keep us entertained during the harvesting process.

Since we have next to no snow this year, we walked out back for some needles. My face melted into a elated smile as I saw a bunch of moose tracks leading out the old skidder road we were walking on, It was a lovely little stroll.

Of course, after we were done I got to see a massacre, so that changed things up a bit. You see, I gave Lucy a stuffed duck toy for Christmas, it sure didn't take her long to murder the little guy. I mean, she had stuffing out of that poor thing in under and hour. Good times.

It's probably all the Vitamin C infused humans she's around that makes her so savage. We'll never know for sure...

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And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's Now in fresh white pine scent iPhone.

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