— VerifyYourBrain

carolkean in # • last year

Oooh, you have spalted maple!! So did my dad. He made some furniture out of the tree he'd cut down.
The Amana Colonies charges a king's ransom for furniture built from this intriguing wood, with the inky black squiggles that are actually damage to the tree -- "partly rotten and attacked by fungi," with "black lines that change unpredictably inside the wood."

We have some white pine filled with the squiggles of engravers, but no, we've never milled it. A derecho took down the towering pines we'd planted 20 years before, and we hauled away the carcasses of trees rather than do something with them (like buy our own mill).

The fir engraver causes significant mortality of mature and pole-size true fir trees, creating snags ranging in size from the largest host trees down to 10 cm (4 in) dbh. Colonized trees provide good woodpecker foraging habitat.

Only one white pine was decimated by the engraver. The six towering pines taken down by the derecho had appeared to be healthy. They just snapped in half like pencils. Of course I cannot find photos now...
I could swear I had blogged about this ...

AWESOME:

With the prices of lumber being off on the charts, thank goodness we are capable of producing our own lumber.

last year in # by carolkean

Sort:

thebigsweed last year

It's nice knowing someone else who knows their stuff.

Spalted Maple goes for as much as $20/ board foot and higher.

Two years ago I sold 150 board feet to a cabinet builder and fetched a good penny and he was happy as ever to have only paid $800.00

Last year I felled two Sugar Maples and they have been exposed to the elements ever since, doing their magic. I hope to mill them next year.

With the way I keep picture files, finding a few out of the thousands on file can be maddening, you're not alone.

Thank goodness we don't have any problem with insects destroying the conifers in our region.
Woodpecker holes in dead pines we have plenty of them.

I do love my trees.

0.00 VYB

[-]

carolkean last year

#LOVE all your comments today, and love your trees, and your resourcefulness, and your photos.
You're the best!!!!

0.02 VYB

1 vote

[-]

thebigsweed last year

Thanks for all of the love, it was fun sharing some of what happens at both of our locations. It seems like we have much in common.

We should stay in touch!

0.00 VYB

[-]

carolkean last year

Three years later, I still cannot walk to the river due to the massive, massive fallen trees blocking the way. Not a deer path in sight! Our dogs cannot straddle the trees, and there are SO MANY, and the Dept. of Natural Resources has totally abandoned all these acres. No more mowed pathways, no moving the debris blocking the old paths, but I have gone through with pruning sheers to hack a new path through raspberry thickets and all the little shrubberies.

0.02 VYB

1 vote

[-]

thebigsweed last year

So you found what you were looking for, that was pretty quick.

What a tangled web Mother Nature wove on that occasion.
It will take years for all of that wood to decay so it's a good thing you at least made a path to get to the wild berries. Wild berries are the bomb.

0.00 VYB