Timber to Table – New Life for an Old Friend

Sometime before 1950, the young couple, May and Spencer Hess, planted two Sequoia seedlings beside their new, forest-surrounded home in the Coast Range foothills.  They grew fast and large and by 2012 began to drop large chunks of their tops onto the house and surrounding yard.  Stewardship of the house and surrounding forest is now in the hands of Hyla Woods, and the falling apart trees posed enough of a safety risk to people and the home that they sadly had to come down.  Great, non native trees in the wrong place.  The next question was: “what might we do with these massive (over 50″ at the base) logs?”  In the foggy cold on the day after Christmas we began the process of giving the trees a second life by milling them into 12′ x 2″ slabs.  Leadership was welcomely provided by Ben Hayes, who found us a slabbing mill and sorted out how to use it.  After several years of drying these slabs will come back to life as beautiful tables and counters.  But where?  Stay tuned!