Opinion: Trees, Hearts and Bones

The concern expressed in my previous article about trees is that we are carelessly destroying a natural resource without considering its value to our own survival as well as our own importance to its survival.  Think of it as a cycle; it's simple really, we need trees and trees need us.

There was one perspective that I failed to mention in the article, and it was immediately noticed by some of our readers.  This is what one reader said:

“More importantly, trees offer themselves as the most important vertebrae in the backbone of cultures and they have done so for thousands of years."   Thank you, Horseshoe, my good friend in North Carolina.

Vertebrae. The backbone. The structure. Where would we be without the wood that shelters us, holds us with its strength and keeps us comfortable?

I had failed to mention anything about the value of wood, mostly because I don’t know a thing about woodworking. I have some beautiful wood on the walls of my studio, and I grew up in a home built of wood and had wonderful wood paneling.  I have a very good friend who builds the most beautiful furniture; recently I watched as he built a harvest table and a gorgeous bookcase. My brother creates exquisite bowls and candlesticks from wood. I simply appreciate and enjoy what I see, but I am not a carpenter and I couldn’t explain that perspective. I do have two well loved pieces that were built by my great grandfathers more than 150 years ago.

Pie Safe	Washstand

I wish I were a carpenter. They seem to have a heart to heart relationship with trees. They create from trees those things that are forever beautiful, useful and long lasting.  It takes a special person to look at a tree and see in it a finished harvest table or a door, a pie safe, a washstand, the frame of a barn or the walls of a home. It is the carpenter who turns the tree into our vertebrae.

One of my best online friends is married to a carpenter and this story is hers.  When I read her words in the comments that followed the first article, it occurred to me that there are those people who are even more connected with trees than I am; people who understand the heart of the tree and who can make the tree’s inner beauty live forever. The rest of this story is told by one who has lived with and worked beside her carpenter for most of their lives.  It’s the story of love and respect for each other and for the wood our trees provide.  Let’s take a look at the heart and bones of trees.

Here’s my friend Vic’s story in her words:

"This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart

We have 21 acres so I can't count the trees out there, but there are LOTS of them. It’s a good mixture of softwoods and hardwoods, although we lost quite a few pines from the pine beetle during a severe drought about 10 years ago.

I love wood. We have lots of wood in our home. We have oak doors, casing, baseboard, vanities, as well as cherry cabinets and some knotty pine; none of which we could afford if we didn't already have the lumber, machinery, tools, or the carpenter to build them.

That said, Hank and I are huge tree advocates.

For many years, we would purchase trees through our county extension office. We would get a nice selection of hardwoods and softwoods, and there would be around 300 saplings all for a nominal fee.

We do not agree with clear cutting, selective cutting only. When Hank picked the oak trees for building our doors, etc., for every tree that was cut, twice as many saplings were planted.

Hank wrote an article back in the late 70's or early 80's about harvesting wood from our rain forests.  He refuses to build anything for anyone with wood from rain forests. I seem to remember there are also lots of trees in the rain forests that are used in medicine as well.

I have had the honor and privilege of seeing a standing oak go from the forest to the sawmill, to our shop where it is "sticked", ends painted to prevent checking, dried, planed, shaped, moulded, built, stained, finished, and installed.

I have a huge respect for trees for all that they give us.

In our woods, it's fun to see all the shapes. There is one shape formed by a stand of three poplars all together and Hank named them the Three Sisters. They are huge and seems like they reach all the way to heaven.

When we were building this home, the telephone folks backed a huge truck into a pine tree so that it leaned terribly. Hank took the bobcat bucket as high as he could and climbed up and put a log chain around it and pulled it straight, fastening it to another tree. We left it like that for about 3 years and now it's perfectly straight. Over the course of those 3 years, people would ask why were we trying to save a dumb tree. What???

I could talk about wood forever

The trees that Hank chose for our doors, cabinets, etc., were FAS rejects.  FAS means FIRST AND SECOND. First and second means there are only so many knots per board foot. So we had more knots than perfect but it is still beautiful and he's good enough at his craft, most of the knots get cut out anyway.

Hank, cutting up an oak tree

After the tree is cut, it is taken to the sawmill which cuts it into four-quarter, six-quarter, eight-quarter and so on; whatever you request. Most times, Hank has the tree cut for maximum yield. But sometimes he has a log or two quarter sawn for tighter grains.

He built a kiln to dry the lumber most of which was 16 feet long. The lumber at this point is "in the rough", very ugly and sopping wet.

These are photos of wood in the rough although some of it is planed. You can see the saw cuts from the sawmill on some of these.

Even though some of this wood you see in the photos is planed, you can see where it was painted on ends to stall the checking. The last photo shows an example of checking.

First you have to paint the ends of the boards because as it dries, the moisture leaves the ends, not the sides. Painting the ends helps prevent checking, which are cracks that happen as the wood dries. The wood has to be dried to 7% moisture for cabinet/furniture making.

As you load the wood into the kiln, you stick it. That means you have (in our case) 1x2's between each row so the lumber can breathe. It also helps for stability.

I don't have photos of the kiln. It was in our Ohio shop and when we took it apart, we didn't put it back together here in North Carolina.

To check for moisture, you use a tool that looks similar to a meat thermometer. You stick it in the wood and it gives you the moisture content.

Once it's dried, it is first planed. My favorite woods to plane are poplar and cherry. When cherry comes through the planer, it smells like cherry blossoms. The fragrance is wonderful. Poplar is fun because the grain is sometimes purple. It definitely has it's own personality.

These are shots of the planer:

We started planing way back in the late 70's before OSHA, before ear protection, and we are both very hearing impaired because of it. The planer is a huge and loud piece of machinery. We now wear ear protection and masks when we plane. If I had a penny for every piece of sawdust we've planed, I'd be a trillionaire.

Once it's planed for thickness, the wood is ready to be straightened and that is done with a radial arm saw:

From there sometimes it goes to the joiner if there is cupping.

Then the wood goes to the shaper. The first photo is the shaper and then you see the shaper with rollers on either side. The rollers are used to keep the boards stable. The shaper does all the "pretty" detail work. The little gray thingy with the silver handles that is bolted onto the top of the shaper is called a stock feeder. It keeps the board flat as it's running through the shaper bit.

Now it's time to put it together and everything is glued. No nails allowed. Hank even makes his own dowel rods for the doors. Everything is glued and clamped.

Then it's ready to stain and finish.

We've always treated wood with respect. I never take for granted the beauty of what comes through the planer.

We've seen bullets where guns were shot through the trees many years before and sometimes even a nail which is bad. Bullets are OK because they are soft and won't damage the knives on the planer but a nail is very bad news. All the knives have to be re-sharpened if we hit a nail.

It takes 3 honking motors to run the planer which gives you an idea of its power. It takes a piece of lumber that is all in the rough with marks all over it from the sawmill and turns it into a smooth and beautiful piece of wood.

See, I told you I could talk about trees and wood forever.

There are 4 woods in this photo above:  maple door, knotty pine wall, cherry cabinet and maple top.

The photo above is a close up of the knotty pine wall.  Next you'll see two of the maple doors that are upstairs.

All the interior doors downstairs are oak. The casing is unique in that Hank designed (that engineering thing, ya know) and had a machinist machine a bit from his design. He made the baseboard as well and you can see some of the oak flooring here.

Walnut is my least favorite to plane. It's stinks and it's very very dirty and stains your hands. It's much more expensive than oak and cherry too. Maybe because there are less of them than the others, I don't know.

I just can't take credit for this on my own. We're like two peas in a pod when we work together. Every piece of everything I've learned about wood, I've learned from Hank. It's been 40 some years of learning and so fun. We work so well together, it's almost like a dance. We're synchronized in all our moves when we're handling the lumber.

One story I wanted to tell you is Hank told me once that his earliest memory of a birthday, he was probably around 5, his parents asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he told them he wanted the lumber truck to come with wood so he could build something.

We have this in a framed print. My sister gave it to Hank as a gift for all the wood:

 
Prayer of the Woods

I am the heat of your hearth on the cold winter nights, the friendly shade screening you from the summer sun, and my fruits are refreshing draughts quenching your thirst as you journey on.

I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table, the bed on which you lie, and the timber that builds your boat.

I am the handle of your hoe, the door of your homestead, the wood of your cradle, and the shell of your coffin.

I am the bread of kindness and the flower of beauty. Ye who pass by, listen to my prayer: Harm me not.

This prayer has been used in the Portuguese forest preservations for more than 1,000 years.

Thank God for trees".

~*~

And Vic, we should also be thankful that we have people like you and Hank.

Isn’t it fortunate that we have in our lives those folks who have such a deep rapport with trees; people who can look at what a tree has to offer and make a thing of strong and useful beauty from it?  Most of the time the name of the carpenter is long forgotten, but the beautiful wood that same carpenter brought forth from the tree will most likely continue to serve us for a very long time. Thank you, Vic and Hank, for sharing your story with us.

We depend on trees for our very lives, and trees depend on us to carefully maintain and prolong the necessities they freely share with us.

Do you have treasures of wood in your home? Take a look and share with us what you find. Wooden treasures. They are all around us.

It's simple really, like a cycle:  we need trees and they also need us.