Life in Maine

I'll be the first to admit that I have acted irrationally at times. Who hasn't? Show me a person who claims to be rational all of the time, and I'll show you a delusional individual.

One such admitted act of irrationality has to do with an oak tree that is on the property on which I built my house. The five acres is filled with majestic oaks, but two of them really stand out. Once is a grand old beast, with a trunk girth suggesting that it has been around well over 100 years. The other, while not as huge, has an ample, tall trunk and attractive shape that exemplifies the notion of a "sturdy oak."

Both of these trees happen to sit very near where I wanted to build the house. And, in a fit of irrational behavior, I was determined that neither of these trees would be scarified to build the house. For the "grand old beast," this didn't particularly present a problem, in that it would be a good 30 feet or so from any of the house locations I had come up with. The other tree was a bit more problematic. There was just no way to position the house such that it wouldn't sit dangerously close to the structure. When I say "danger," I am referring to danger for the tree, not from the tree - with construction occurring so near the oak, the root system, the lifeblood of a tree, could be compromised.

The easy solution would have been to bite the bullet and just cut the tree down before beginning any construction. But I just couldn't do that - the tree had been there long before I had been and I thought it deserved to at least be given the chance to carry on for another 100 years or so. In fact, I was so committed to saving the tree that when one potential builder made the comment "you can't save all the trees, it really has to go," I no longer considered him for the project.

Working around a tree during construction does, of course, add to the cost of the construction. With the tree "in the way," all of the workers, from the excavation contractor, to the carpenters, to the delivery people, had to work around it, thereby adding to the time it took to do their jobs. When they poured the foundation, they had to bring in a special truck to pump the concrete to the far reaches of the foundation since the tree blocked the cement mixers from getting there. But no matter, the end would justify the means, I reasoned.

And it truly did. In the end, the "stubborn" oak arched gracefully over the northern side of the house, making the brand new house appear as if it had been there for years and the tree had grown up around it. It was the ultimate landscaping "anchor," setting the woodland tone for our entire landscaping effort.

The following summer after the construction was completed, the first hints of trouble started to appear. In a few of the far reaching branches that arched over the roof, the leaves that had appeared in the spring inexplicably shriveled up and died. These branches would have been fed by the roots that were now covered by the basement slab, so it wasn't entirely surprising that the branches would suffer. No problem, I reasoned, we could just trim the dead branches away.

The next year, things got dramatically worse. That summer, a good one half of the tree lacked foliage. Still, I refused to believe that the cause was hopeless.

By the third summer, it became clear that things were, perhaps, hopeless. Only one main branch bore leaves. I called in some experts and they were all of the same opinion - the trees crown was dead or dying and nothing could be done to save it. My grand experiment had failed. And to add insult to injury, I would now have to pay to get the tree taken down.

But even at this point, I wasn't willing to just let go. It took a lot longer than it should of to find someone to take down the tree for a reasonable price, and it took even longer for them to show up and actually do it.

So what does one do to honor a 100+ year old tree that you've inadvertently killed? You attempt to honor it's spirit. For one thing, I felt it was only fair to try to find a purposeful use for the wood. This is not as easy as it may sound. Even though I was offering the wood for free to anyone who might put it to good use (i.e. something other than firewood), it was nearly impossible to find someone who wanted the wood and could handle carting off the trunk. A single tree, it seems, doesn't warrant the investment in bringing in a logging truck to cart it off. After exhausting all of the avenues I could think of, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would have to turn the beautiful tree into yet more firewood. (I currently have enough firewood to last a few lifetimes, at least). However, after the tree crew had dismantled the beast, they made a few phone calls and the major portion of the trunk was donated to a local man who has a sawmill. He picked up the trunk the same day, gingerly driving down in a logging truck with the words “tree killer” hand lettered on the front. Not the most elegant sendoff, but at least the wood would “live” beyond the earthly demise of the tree.

But finding a use for the wood was only one aspect of honoring the tree. The other, more lasting memorial was to create a carving out of the bottom portion of its trunk. In and around the Belfast area, over the years, it has become somewhat common to see faces carved in tree trunks and logs. The carver, Ron Cowan, started out his face carving endeavors as a hobby and has since made it his full-time job. After seeing his work at an art festival this summer and talking with him, we set the wheels in motion to have a face carved into the trunk.

The first step that Ron takes in turning the wood into a face is to study his "palette." He spent at least an hour sizing up the trunk from all angles, looking for it to "speak" to him about where the face should be placed and what shape it would take. The questions he asked us were minimal. Did we want a male or female face? A happy face or contemplative face? How far up on the trunk did we want the face, and how tall? We didn't care about the sex, preferred a contemplative face - something suggestive of a native American, and decided that it should be about four feet tall.

And so it began. With a chainsaw. The initial chainsaw carving went surprisingly fast. Over the course of two days and about six hours, he had developed what I would consider to be nearly a finished piece. Ah, but I was wrong. Very wrong.

After the chainsaw was put away, the precision woodworking tools came out. The rough chainsaw cuts were smoothed. The eyes gained amazing detail. The lips and mouth were painstakingly perfected. And after all this was done, he stepped back, took a long look at what he had created, and then brought the chainsaw out again. The jawbone was entirely reshaped, hair was added, the cheeks were thinned. And then it was back to the precision woodworking tools.

The two days of "almost finished" turned into about eight days of shaping and reshaping. Through it all, we stood back and watched, allowing the artist's instincts to make the design decisions. The final preparation was to top off the trunk with copper sheeting to prevent water from prematurely destroying the trunk.

Art - 100 Years in the Making