The Woods Less Traveled
It seems that in recent years I am drawn to wood that can often be overlooked. It started with old fence-posts from a ranching neighbor. It was so satisfying to work with something that would normally be put tossed away when it's apparent usefulness was finished. In sanding and sculpting the old juniper or pitch pine posts, I was never disappointed by the resulting new life it was given. They were beautiful this time with a new and more refined purpose - a lamp, a wine holder, a yule log, or table legs.
This episode of the "Game On" video, you will see me making the pulls for the drawers that will hold the chess and backgammon pieces. Happily to say, no deer lost it's life giving up its antlers for a higher cause. In fact, as many of your know, Deer shed their antlers annually as a prelude to the regeneration or re-growth, of new ones. Here it is again, the theme of renewal, new life - second chances.
Of late however, I have been intrigued by the wood from trees almost never even considered for a piece of furniture. A desk and chair I have named "The Least of These" and "Sit" and a game table called "Game On" are all made from the lowly scrub oak (quercus gambelii). Mostly it is fuel wood and shreds you and your clothes when you ride or walk through it, but it has other attributes of which most people are unaware. It is a snow catcher so the pasture grass is almost always thickest and greenest in an oak brush patch. It is great cover for new-borns...deer, calves, elk, birds and more. And, in the fall it gives us all the fall colors in one species. How does it do that? And finally, I would have to say that it makes for beautiful furniture. Because of it's small stature and rarely straight, it will not be fashioned by conventional methods. It requires more time to cure, more effort to work and more quantity 'cause their small but tough, very tough.
And one last thing about scrub oak...when it is old and near the end of it's life, the wood is often not as tough or hard. But it is far more interesting and colorful and fragrant. Does that remind you of anything or anyone?
Next time, if I remember, I must write something about Bad Breath Wood that is just nasty in almost every way. But wait, there may be a glimmer of hope for it as a furniture wood. Just wear a mask if you want to be kissed later.
Signing off, Dan Rieple. Believe it!
