A couple of years ago my wife and I hired a tree service (Glenwood Tree Services); to come and prune our two black locust trees located in the front of our house. Since that time I have been going, on occasion to the yard on Winston Churchill where the owner of Glenwood (Steve Lukac; glenwoodtree@bellnet.ca) stores his equipment along with a vast pile of culled logs from city trees. Early last fall, as I was perusing the yard for "hidden treasures", I had a happenstance, but fortunate, conversation with Steve. During our conversation I mentioned to Steve that I might be interested in purchasing some nice walnut crotches if he should have the good fortune to come across some in the future. Well, as they say "be careful what you wish for", because, a few weeks later, I got a phone call that Steve and crew had cut down some mature black walnut trees in Oakville and were in possession of some nice large walnut crotches; 5 in all! A quick visit to the Glenwood yard convinced me that these were really nice pieces so I purchased all five of them for $350 (including delivery to my house).

five walnut crotches

What was I thinking? Delivery to my house?? Oh oh, soon enough a large crane truck pulled into my driveway and deposited five large and very heavy walnut crotches. Now what? It was already late November and the snow was going to be soon flying--sooner than I anticipated. I started calling around and found a few sawyers but only one (Mark Gebessler; Clean Cut Tree Service in Caledon; markgebessler@gmail.com) that was willing to come out to my house with his 55' long portable sawmill rig and, for $475, cut up the walnut crotches to my specifications. Unfortunately sawyers, as I was about to discover, can be very busy people so I was advised that the earliest Mark could come to my house was mid to late December...and then it snowed, and snowed...and snowed again.

Winter came on in earnest and I waited (I didn't have much choice at that point!). February was a snowy option but, alas, poor Mark got the flu at the appointed time. Finally, a snow clear blue sky day in early March presented itself and I was in business! Mark showed up at 10:00 AM at my house with his big rig. He told me he purchased the (Timber Harvester) mill second hand from an Amish farmer in upper New York State and that it originally cost $55K when new. We spent the better part of the next 2 hours getting it leveled and properly set up. Fred Spencer kindly showed up around lunch time to lend a much-needed hand. The job went along smoothly enough and, by the end of the day, we had 4 out of the 5 crotches cut up with only one crotch left over for the next morning.

walnut crotches centre cut

cutting

Then came the fun job of painting the ends of the heavy (especially when you move them around alone, after work, at night!) crotches and planks with Lee Valley end sealer. Andrew Turnbull came over to my place on the weekend to help build the 6" x 6" lumber base for the stack. Stickering the wood was the next step and both Andrew and my wife Maria contributed much needed assistance and soon enough the stack was completed. Next came the corrugated roof which was securely tied down to keep it in place.

storing the stack

Now, the only thing left to do is to wait and dream...for 3-5 years! But then, dreaming is fun, and the gorgeous walnut crotches will be there when it comes time to turn dreams into reality!