Walnut Tree

This winter we received a call from a local farmer who was deconstructing the original farmhouse on his property. He wanted to know if we were interested in harvesting any building materials for our own house project, so we went over for a visit.

We were no strangers to the process of methodically deconstructing a house. I was immediately struck by the familiar smell of dank sheathing and bat piss.

We explained that these days, our focus was on furniture making, that we were mostly done with house building. He offered that we might have interest in a walnut tree on the edge of the cornfields.

His grandfather planted a small stand of walnut trees from seed in the 1950’s, most of which had been cut down due to the toxic effects on the soil. He explained that his last tree was ruining a large shadow of his corn crop. We said we would take it. We had the winter to cut it and truck it, while the ground remained frozen and before seeds would be sown.

The lone walnut tree on the edge of the cornfield at the farm in Southampton, MA.

We called upon our friends who have logging equipment and experience felling large trees and got to work one silvery winter day. The tree came down with precision. 

Several constraints determined the size of the cuts: the loading capacity of the old farm tractors and the size of the truck bed. At that moment we decided we could use the odd limbs to mill into butcher block top for our future kitchen.

figuring out how to break down the tree.

Two full loads were trucked to the sawmill that day. We are so lucky to live in a place where small-scale sawmills still exist. 

And so began the process of acquiring materials locally. We got a call a few weeks later from a neighbor who needed his own walnut tree removed. In cahoots with the tree guys, we trucked the logs to the sawmill and had them sawn up. Now stacked at our property, piles abound. After waiting two years to dry, the lumber will ultimately return to our workshop for furniture projects.

yard stacks abound

Accessing the materials that closely surround us can feel practical, obvious even. Why wouldn’t we buy affordable, locally sourced walnut lumber from a twinkly-eyed farmer?

But transforming this resource into a usable building material involves a series of commitments to tremendously tedious tasks: cutting the tree, trucking it, having it sawn, trucking it back to our land, sorting and stacking, painting and re-painting ends, re-stacking, weed-whacking the bases of stacks, and waiting two years for it to dry. 

In a culture that most values expediency, I wonder why I seek out and even embrace such inefficiency—the sheer mundanity of caring for these stacks?

All the processes share something in common: they are relational. Interacting with the sawyers is overtly relational. What is less explicit is how the act of tending is relational. Observing the material’s changing needs through seasons and time and responding to those needs. E.g. painting and repainting the ends to slow the drying process and prevent checking. This too is relational. 

Tending is about observing and taking small actions in relation to those observations. These tiny acts collect to build a network within which to locate the self. They establish a context—an embodied way of inhabiting an ecosystem.