Among the snow, about 1/4 mi off the road, I found the tree, a perfect 18' tree. It was getting dark so I turned the headlights on so I could see as I sawed the tree. I finally fell the tree and dragged to to the side of the Jeep. being alone, I had to figure out how to get this enormous and heavy tree on the top. It weighed too much to lift so I rigged up a ratcheting system, that would take too long to explain, and slowly inched it up front, back, front, back... to the top.
It was pitch black by now and I realized that I had left the lights on the WHOLE time. I got in and, as I expected, the battery was dead. My cell phone was also dead so I hiked to the highway with my flashlight and flagged people for an hour before finding someone willing to drive down a dirt road into the forest in the middle of the night with me to "jump" my car.
Mel was the name of my angel who helped me. I did get it home and built bracing to keep it up (the winds howled in December but it never fell). Getting the lights and ornaments on it proved scary for a person afraid of heights. I had my 12 year old neighbor hold the ladder as I twisty tied the huge lighted star on the top of that 18' tree.
In the end it was a masterpiece of pure genius even if it took several "stupid" moves to get there.
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