Turn it, Don't Burn it

NYT article, A Fading Tree, Once Majestic, Had to Come Down. But It Wasn’t the End.A beloved sugar maple slowly succumbed to disease. Today, it lives on in a new form by author  Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

“Turn it, don’t burn it,” says Corey Snyder’s business card. I’d met Snyder, a wood turner, years ago at our farmer’s market, had bought beautiful bowls from him as wedding gifts. I asked if he could do the same with our tree. He said he’d come look at the wood. Maple is often a light wood, sometimes almost white, he said, which many people don’t like. But he was willing to see how the grain turned out.

His chain saw struck up another chorus. More piles of sawdust accumulated on the grass. This time, I put my nose to the newly cut grain and soaked in its sweet smell. We placed heavy chunks of the tree into a tractor bucket, then loaded them onto his trailer. He took them back to his shop. He’d let me know if the wood was worth using.

A couple months later, Snyder presented me with three beautiful, honey-colored bowls: one for our son, one for our daughter, and one for us. Each has different characteristics. One has a “bark inclusion,” a dark brown mushroom-shaped mark where a branch had been trimmed or damaged.

Another has a wave pattern resulting from a Y (a crotch, Snyder called it) where two branches met and the tree’s growth pattern changed. One has light streaks of green because of mineral deposits. They are different shapes, sizes and thicknesses. I asked him how he chose what form the bowls should take. “I let the piece of wood dictate,” he said.