Turning dead wood into Old Growth

 My friend Rob helped us take down an old and unusually large apple tree on the farm a few months ago. The tree was probably a century old, and about to collapse. It produced a green, tangy apple of a type no one seemed able to identify, what is today often referred to as an "artisanal" or "heirloom" apple, I believe. As kids, we swatted bees to make cloudy cider from the fruit with an antique cider press. 

The tree in question

Someday, I hope to expand this post into an essay on the history of apple trees on family farms. Such essays are time-consuming but great fun to research.* For now, it's enough to note that Rob is a gifted woodworker. One of his specialties is "turning" wooden bowls. His interest in the tree was in its substance, twisted and whorled by age and filled with live worms. Rob took lengths of the trunk back to his shed in Fredericksburg. Using his woodworking tools and expertise, he transformed them into beautiful artwork.

The gorgeous bowl pictured here (front and back views) recently won a "People's Choice" award in a local show.

The wood's warmth and character is remarkable. I like to think it reflects its many years of existence alongside the Creek -- this was a tree with countless stories to tell. Long a home to birds and insects, and source of sustenance for diverse peoples.  

In a remarkably generous act, Rob has donated his prize-winning bowl to a fund-raising auction for a local conservation non-profit that I help lead, the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. The NVCT has conserved over 8,000 acres of open space and habitat in our region. That conserved land includes a very large blue heron rookery on Potomac Creek and a designated Old Growth forest.

In this way, a dead tree that fed generations of Creek farm families will "turn" into Old Growth forest somewhere nearby. I like that thought.

You can look at more of Rob's amazing woodcraft here. Tell him I sent you. ;)

*If ever I do, many thanks to my agent and fellow nature-nut Leslie for pointing me in the right direction with this book and telling me about Virginia's own "Professor Apple."