Travis Johnson
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I suppose this thread could be construed as a whine, but overall its not meant to. Its really just a sad story of the internet, a landowner and a Basswood tree.
It all started a year and a half ago when a guy on another forum said he "wanted a massive amount of basswood for a huge carving." Well as luck would have it, I have some Basswood growing on my property that I have been cutting around for years. Basswood prices are very low so its not worth cutting commercially so I figured I would save it for something special. Well a massive carving was something special...so I contacted the guy and said I would give it to him if he promised to "pass it up" someday.
He readily agreed. So I went out in the woods and harvested this pretty good sized tree. It was so muddy that my little tractor could not get into the woods,but I had my Grandfather's dozer at the house and I knew that would not have any problem in the mud. So I cut it down, pulled it out, bucked it into logs. It was way to muddy to cut on the sawmill, so I debarked the logs and then sawed it out in the dimensions the guy needed.
Then it sat...and sat...and sat...and now...well wood is a living, breathing kind of thing, so its slowly has deteriorated. Every time I contacted the guy he promised he would be right up...but he never did. The wood slowly cracked and split, warped and twisted, and now is pretty much a pile of scrap wood. Its kind of a shame because I would not have harvested it if I had known its fate would have ended so poorly.
There is no sense crying over spilled milk I suppose, but I did learn my lesson and won't be so quick to cut down any trees for anyone out of sheer kindness. I really feel bad about the whole thing, I really hate wasting wood. There is more out in the woods, just not as tall and big as this tree. As I said I planned on saving it for something special and to see it go to comeplete waste is kind of sad.
It all started a year and a half ago when a guy on another forum said he "wanted a massive amount of basswood for a huge carving." Well as luck would have it, I have some Basswood growing on my property that I have been cutting around for years. Basswood prices are very low so its not worth cutting commercially so I figured I would save it for something special. Well a massive carving was something special...so I contacted the guy and said I would give it to him if he promised to "pass it up" someday.
He readily agreed. So I went out in the woods and harvested this pretty good sized tree. It was so muddy that my little tractor could not get into the woods,but I had my Grandfather's dozer at the house and I knew that would not have any problem in the mud. So I cut it down, pulled it out, bucked it into logs. It was way to muddy to cut on the sawmill, so I debarked the logs and then sawed it out in the dimensions the guy needed.
Then it sat...and sat...and sat...and now...well wood is a living, breathing kind of thing, so its slowly has deteriorated. Every time I contacted the guy he promised he would be right up...but he never did. The wood slowly cracked and split, warped and twisted, and now is pretty much a pile of scrap wood. Its kind of a shame because I would not have harvested it if I had known its fate would have ended so poorly.
There is no sense crying over spilled milk I suppose, but I did learn my lesson and won't be so quick to cut down any trees for anyone out of sheer kindness. I really feel bad about the whole thing, I really hate wasting wood. There is more out in the woods, just not as tall and big as this tree. As I said I planned on saving it for something special and to see it go to comeplete waste is kind of sad.