Gone to the Beech.

Gone to the Beech tree that is.  In the picture here there are eleven pieces, mostly logs, of a beech tree that I had given to me.  In exchange for all of the wood I have to make a few pieces to give back.  The tree was taken down to make way for development and the developer was glad that someone could actually use the wood instead of it just sitting and rotting.  So I left home this morning and drove the 1 1/2 hours it took to get to the site where the tree is.  I cut up three of the pieces to make into bowls and vessels.  I filled the back of my pick up with short pieces of log and bowl blanks.  In the picture the pieces don't look that big but most are over 24" in diameter.  For instance the piece pictured on the bottom left was about 54" long and about 26" in diameter.  Nice!  Some of the wood has already started to spalt, the process that wood goes through when it starts to break down and rot, which means the pieces are going to have extra character and lines running through the finished pieces.  I'm figuring it's going to take another four to five trips to get all of the wood back home but it should be well worth it.  I will post some pictures when I have some pieces done.