Jaci Dawn

I almost cringe when I go outside to take photos now. I keep seeing things around the house that need repair, like getting all the moss off of the roof or the peeling paint under the eaves or the moss attaching itself to the end of the hand rail on our front steps.

But, then… it did make for an interesting photo, that end of the hand rail. The tree that was logged and cut into two-by-sixes had several consistent years of life. You can tell how hard a year was for a tree by the depth of the ring (or lack thereof) or how wet a year.

The heart of the tree is in this 2×6″, then each ring spirals out in almost exactly the same depth for the next sixteen years (at least – I only counted the rings in the photo). Good years by the consistency: plenty of water and nutrients in the soil, and enough sunshine.

When I scrub it clean this spring and sand it down, I will pay particular attention to this end and will try to imagine the life the tree must have led before it was logged and run through a saw mill. I’ll hope it was an Oregon sawmill. I will make note of what years were bad and what ones were good in the bit of life exposed on this plank. I will wonder how old the tree was and how many board feet of lumber it produced in the end.

Was it what they call a “toothpick” in logging terms? Or some giant in a growth of  “old growth” (that is a tract of land that hasn’t been logged in a hundred years). Or was it truly and old growth tree, one of those behemoths that take several log trucks to haul away to the saw mill?

My mind will reconstruct the tree’s story, from the time it was a sapling and through the seasons: all the coyotes that peed on it, deer that nibbled it, bears that scratched it, snow that fell on it, beetles that bored into it, and chickarees (Douglas squirrel) that climbed its branches. I’ll envision its trek off the mountain to the saw mill and the planer, then to the lumber yard and the lumber supply store. I’ll imagine the hands that nailed it to this spot on my steps and then painted it white.

It is just how my mind works.