You Decorate a Tree, You Throw it in the Yard

Over the years I've gotten into the habit of grabbing a couple of the neighbors' discarded Christmas trees and setting them up in our yard.  The needles stay on until spring so they look nice, I place one in front of a window people can look through from the sidewalk to block the view because I like to leave the curtains open so we (including Bean) can see out, and the birds like perching in them when they visit the feeder.  In the early spring I cut off the branches and add them to the compost when fresh, green material is hard to come by.  The downside is I end up with this collection of trunks that accumulate and are just kind of a pain.  So I chuckled to myself the other day when it occurred to me to put the trunks out for the city crew to pick up when they do their collection of this year's trees.  Well, the chuckling turned to tears today, and I felt like I'm living in another John Prine song (I always feel like I'm living in John Prine songs) and I came home to find the old trunks still at the curb.  Perhaps they have a minimal needle (or branch) limit?  The real insult came when I noticed the tree staked up with two posts halfway down the driveway in front of the window was gone.