Timberturner + Bowlwood Woodturning: October 2013

Each year, I look forward to those first days of autumn, when the bell curve of annual temperatures and humidity is decidedly on its downslope side. That's New England at its best. Having had a long interest in trees and woodturning, I like to be in the woods at any time of year, but especially in the fall.

Sugar Maple in Autumn

In the last couple years or so, I've been helping fellow wood turners learn to identify the trees whose wood we all work with. A core group of us has developed, and we've been enjoying day hikes in the woods almost weekly for some time now. As a result of having to answer innumerable questions such as "what makes that a Sugar Maple and not a Red Maple?", or "how do you know that's a White Oak?", I've had to hone my own identification skills, and review the characteristics of dozens of species to be able to explain them to others. And that's been a very good exercise for me.

White Oak in Autumn

As an extension of sharpening my own tree identification skills, I've lately been taking the time to examine tree trunks more closely, paying particular attention to little details in the bark. That's led me to spend more time noticing the patterns in it, as well as the surfaces of dead wood, and the structures of other organisms growing on and in trees (fungi, mosses, lichens, etc). I like to call the pastime "barking".

This fall, the weather has been superb in western Massachusetts, and it's been a great pleasure to poke around in a forest for hours on end, camera in hand. There's an enormous world of tiny things to be found on and around trees. I'm fascinated by dead and decaying wood, especially the patterns to be seen in the weathered, eroding structure of it. So far, I've found some of the most interesting grain patterns in dead oak limbs, those whose bark has fallen off.

One day, while reviewing a close-up photo of the grain structure of a dead oak limb I had taken with my cell phone camera, I was delighted to notice an animal caricature in the grain's pattern. Take a look at photo-1 and maybe you'll see it too. It helps if you look at it from a distance; on the small screen of my cell phone, it was best seen at arm's length, so you may need to be farther away than that from your larger computer monitor.

Do you see an animal's face? I see a terrier, others see a bear. The terrier is looking slightly downward and to the right; his right ear and eye, and nose, are prominent, and his left eye is not visible.

That photo was a closeup of the swirling grain on a dead oak limb, and the next photo (#2) is of the same limb; different area, and not such a closeup. What do you see in this one?

Photo 3 is a rather bizarre one. I don't know what caused this beech tree to look like this, but when I think of the old assurance that "his bark is worse than his bite", I have some doubts! Have I just found my first alien??