When I was growing up in southeastern Nebraska my dad and I had a
36" diameter bandsaw set up like a little sawmill. We'd get Walnut logs that
had been buryed under water in the creek bank for decades or longer. The
land is rather flat out there and the creeks meander back and forth across
the landscape over time. We figured that some of these logs had been washed
out by the creek, which had then meandered a couple hundred yards to the
north and back again to re-expose the logs. Maybe they had been under there
for centuries.
Once we got a log out, which was quite an endeavor, my dad would caress the
surface of the log, and put my hand under his so I
could feel it too. We'd walk up and down along the log feeling the surface,
imagining what was inside the log. It was like we could reach into those
logs and feel  the
wood  deep inside, straight or swirling grain patterns, pockets of decay,
stones. Then my dad would decide how to open up the log to get the best
boards and then load the log onto the saw carriage. As the boards dropped
away from the log, there were all those interior features, just like we
knew it would be. The Walnut wood was a rich dark brown, not the purplish
Walnut like the more modern growth logs -- beautiful stuff. When dry the
wood was very stable. We used it for all sorts of cabinetry, furniture and
carving. We once made a few stock tanks out of a walnut log because it was
too
full of stones at one end to saw. We cut the log into 30" cants which we
split up into staves with a froe and maul, then joined and beveled by
machine. A couple of those Walnut tanks still water
the stock out there in eastern Nebraska, long after the Red Elm ones rotted
away or were staved in by the cattle. That Walnut is easy to work with,
strong, beautiful, and decay resistant. Can you ask much more from a wood,
or any material? We got our wood where ever we could find it. In the early
'60s they were building a cathedral just a block from our house. The whole
site was strewn with the crates from the imported Italian marble. We got
permission to haul away the crates which were made of the finest Italian
hardwoods, but that's another story....

John Leeke
by hammer and hand great works do stand

John Leeke, Preservation Consultant

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