A Challenge


I was clearing up some cutoffs in the shop, and noticed a couple of largeish pieces of bog oak in the pile.

It seems wrong, somehow, to dispose casually of bog oak. This is stuff from a tree that was alive while humans were in the bronze age, when Troy was the happening place, when the Babylonians were inventing mathematics, etc. I could go on. This wood was soaking in a marsh in Ukraine when Bonaparte’s Grand Armee went past, then back. It was soaking when the German panzers went to Kursk, and then back. It’s a piece of wood that has seen some shit.

The surface looks rough, but it’s not – that’s just the grain. The grain is the strangest I’ve ever seen – it’s almost like it’s inter-woven fibers. But it’s just oak.

Anyhow – I have these two pieces that need a home. You can carve them. You can drill them. You can saw them up and wear them around your neck. You can carve celtic knots in them, or cut them into the shape of a thor’s hammer, or the prow of a dragon-ship. I suppose you could just wax it up and use it as a drink coaster.

Contact me, if you want one (or both) – give me an address and I’ll send ’em along. All you gotta do is do something. (They are a bit more than 1/4″ thick)

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