How I get the basic raw material for sticks and staffs.
Creekhollow walking sticks and staffs are made from raw wood growth – trunks and branches from living or dead trees. I never use lumber or processed wood except small pieces of dyed or carved wood as decorative accents. As a result our products are seldom perfectly straight, but maintain the character of the growth while keeping the handle and foot sufficiently in alignment for comfort and practicality.
Because of this constraint I’ve passed up some really interesting specimens; they were just not suitable stock for the length needed.
Another constraint is the avoidance of cutting healthy trees just to make them into a commercial commodity. I’m not in the lumber business, I only take blanks from the following categories:
Prunings and watersprouts where the pruning was done for tree/shrub health or aesthetics.
Cullings where the entire plant was removed by necessity or for landscape design.
Deadwood; freshly cast-off limbs, storm damage or other mischance resulting in the loss of vitality. A little disease or decay can result in interesting color effects as long as the integrety of the wood remains.
Frankly, there’s plenty of these to keep me busy.
This is an example of a watersprout, an offshoot from the trunk or another branch, which rises at a vertically non-natural angle. These threaten the health of the tree by the risk of damage/decay as well as sapping vitality from normal healthy growth.
Here is an unusually large watersprout, which has decay already forming around the junction with the trunk (not shown). It can easily split away leaving a wound in the bark where insects or decay may enter.
This is a stand of Eastern Cedar ‘scrub’ which are dying out on a flood plane. The damp conditions are unsuitable for this species. These will be culled.
Here’s a little Black Cherry that’s just growing in the wrong place. It has no future and is depleating the soil under a mature tree as well as shading the trunk which encourages the mossy growth.
Leaners over a creek. Picturesque but they’ll eventually fall in and rot in the water.
These are all on Creekhollow property and will be set to dry for 4-6 months before barking, the first step in making a walking stick. More about the process will come.
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