I love to work with wood that has some history. I have a bit of walnut that was from a barn built prior to the civil war in Missouri, as well as some from a dairy barn out of Wisconsin which was built in the 1800's.
Last winter I got permission to hunt some property that has an old structure built from pine timbers that are about 6" thick x 18" wide and around 20 feet long. It is in pretty sad shape, although the timbers are still very solid. I asked the landowner about the building and found that it was a stage stop on the Butterfield Trail. It looks like I will be able to salvage some of the "add-on" wood that is not as stable, but it will only be good for using for wallcovering and such. The landowner hopes to have a local historical society take on the restoration of the building...
A couple of weeks ago, the landowner asked if I would like to cut some firewood from a couple of large white oak trees that had fallen a few years ago. I had seen the downed trees, but paid no attention to them. I was using more firewood in the past couple of weeks, so I thought I would cut some of the wood just to get it out of their way (in a horse pasture close to their house trailer). I cut and split enough to put a couple of rows in the back of my Ranger pickup. I got to looking more closely at some of the wood on the remaining trunks.
There is some CRAZY curly grain at the base of one of the trees. Both trees are about 4 feet across at the base. The one with curly grain was hollow and was only about 6-8 inches thick (solid) around the trunk. I got to thinking about it, and realized that as large as these trees are, they had to be living at the time of the stage route.
Oh, yeah. I just got myself into a nice supply of white oak with some history! I haven't salvaged any yet big enough for call pots. I did turn a neat little coffee scoop for the landowner out of a piece I cut on Saturday.
I'll be cutting some more soon and looking for larger pieces that I can hopefully get some call blanks out of. I have pieces large enough for crow, duck, deer grunts or owl hooters... but don't turn any of these anymore. It may end up as more coffee scoops and such. I thought about trying a local craft show with non-hunting related items... (Did I really just say that?)
