A tale of two trees.
Tree trunk being put to good use
Once upon a time, about 170 years ago, when the human world was so different, two ash seeds winged to the ground. Finding soil and water, they grew and lived their long lives. But in such different circumstances which lead to such different growth.
One landed under a cliff on a river bank. She (trees are feminine in Welsh) grew tall and thin, straining to reach the sun and with hardly any earth to nourish her. Her roots wove around stones and rocks in search of the little nourishment available.
Trunk is behind me whilst planking another tree.
The other tree grew in a filed with deep soil, a mild climate by the sea and sun on her leaves all the growing season. Her trunk grew squat and broad.
(I almost never see the wood I work with when they were living beings. A rare exception is an ash tree at home which I’ve had to cut low because she’s succumbed to ash die back. I’m hoping the roots will survive and she’ll grow again but only time and her immune system will tell.)
These two trees I met only after they had been felled. The one in the field was felled by people for an unknown reason but I was offered the trunk.
The one which grew by the river was pulled up by her roots and lay over the river. A storm, a flood, both? Anyway, the river and her position made a very old age unlikely and I think it was an extraordinary feat that she lived as long as she did.
These two tree trunks came to me at a similar time. I counted the rings of each and to my amazement found they were both about 150 or so years old. One was about 18” diameter (46cm), the other 4’ diameter (120cm).
This goblet shows the closeness of the annual growth.
Annual growth rings so far apart. And a branch sawn off, the memory captured forever in the wood.
These photos show my partner and a friend planking the big tree. I took the photos but was happy not to do the planking for this enormous tree! My cottage and workshops show behind the work, as did a rainbow! The first cut needs a lot of work before sawing to enable the first cut to create a flat surface for subsequent cuts, as shown by the blocks. After that it is just noisy, dusty, back breaking but relatively simple work!
Most of the wood has been turned or used for furniture over many years now, sold and now ‘live’ in a variety of homes, possibly all over Britain. The last slab of the big tree, made into a dining table, has just sold from Origin.
There are a couple of smaller pieces for coffee tables, one of which is in Origin now and is in the background of the photo of the dining table. Half of the last plank of the wood from the small tree is also in Origin as a coffee table.
The little tree has been one of my favourite trees, possibly because of the extreme environment in which she grew and thrived for so long, possibly because of the beautiful, subtle ripples in the wood, possibly also because she comes from within a mile of my birthplace at Felindre Farchog in Pembrokeshire.
The other tree grew within a couple of miles from where I live now, near Aberporth. These two trees, the same species, so different in character and in their growing environment, came together briefly after death to be seasoned and worked by the same woodworker, then briefly sat side by side in the same glorious gallery before moving on to their new homes.
The twists and turns – both of life and of wood are fascinating, aren’t they?
