Death of a Giant 2: The ongoing life of a dead tree

I was quite annoyed when one of our remnant trees was blown down in a freak storm (see Death of a Giant). I’d hoped we could save it from a slow dieback by fencing and planting around it. Of the three trees we did that for, it was the healthiest. But no, the wind screwed it out of the ground, literally.

Craig and I argued about which bits of the tree to make use of. He was determined that branches should lie on the ground to benefit the reptiles. I wanted some high ones with hollows that would benefit the birds.

We did both, in the end.

And we also made sure that the timber had as many other uses as possible.

We called a neighbour, Chris, who had a portable sawmill, to see if we could make something of the main trunk. He identified the tree as red box (eucalyptus polyanthemos), which is listed as “near threatened” on the IUCN Red List in our area because of habitat fragmentation and declining remnants.

Chris sliced a series of “biscuits” from the trunk with his huge chainsaw.

Then he picked up the 2.4 metre long section of the main trunk and carried it over to where he set up his portable mill. Then he made 40-60mm thick slices from the upper trunk. The mill is basically a long chain saw set in a frame to keep it equally spaced.

We argued over the black patches in the timber. Were they the result of fires from many decades ago? Or insect damage? I would love to have the many, many tree rings counted.

One slab went to Queensland and became a beautiful table. It was too short for the original idea of a kitchen island, and had to have an extra piece of a contrasting timber added in the middle to give it table width, but it looks gorgeous.

Another slab we made into a bench for the front garden, also using two of the biscuits. We cut out a wedge from each biscuit to support the bench seat and back.

My design works pretty well in giving it a back. You could potentially have curved armrests as well, but Craig was fed up with the chainsaw by then.

It’s held up well after six years in the front garden.

Meanwhile, we’d stacked the other pieces carefully in flat layers with my planting stakes between them to prevent warping. It seems to have worked well.

But they were taking up a lot of space in the big shed. For six years.

Luckily, Charles and his girlfriend Celia came here in December and persuaded Craig to help them turn two more big slabs into three benches for taking off shoes near our front door. Once again Craig cut the slabs for width and Charles and Celia attached the metal legs I’d bought online.

The timber was extraordinarily hard by now, after eight years of drying. After breaking a number of screws and drill bits, they learned to treat it like stone, going slowly, not pushing, bringing the drill out from time to time to allow the dust to be removed instead of burning. It was a hot and frustrating afternoon, but finally successful.

They look great as a place to sit and take off your shoes outside the front door.

I plan to make two more outdoor garden benches, with round biscuit ends like the first one, for the lower garden.

Charlie also made a hangboard for his climbing tree out of the strip cut from the largest bench, with different depths of drilled finger holes to train his tendons for hanging onto cliffs. He previously asked me to keep the trunk of the enormous cypress that came down in yet another freak storm. He drilled the handholds over several days (hard, again). It took a lot of adjustment to get the board set correctly and sturdily in the tree. It looked like a horrible punishment to hang from your fingertips, but he seemed to enjoy it.

I did at one time plan to make a giant bee hotel out of one of the remaining biscuits, but it would be a significant task to get it to sit upright. And now I know what it takes to drill holes, I might just be satisfied with my Hall Village bee hotel

And… some side tables from the remaining slabs. And… someone suggested making a big coffee table from a biscuit, but they are extremely heavy, and prone to cracking, so perhaps not. Maybe.

And…I have yet to sand and oil the verandah benches. Always more to do.