Small Street Oak to be used in Kiwanis Park

There was a post on the Chatham Chatlist recently from Melinda at the Southern States about what a shame it was that a huge oak was cut down with the clearing of a lot on Small Street. It may be of some small consolation that I was able to obtain the tree, along with a few logs of black walnut, free for the Town, from the folks clearing the lot.

Allan Tyndall of Tyndall’s Tree Service cross cut the tree into four 14” deep rounds, some of which are over 5 feet in diameter. He used a 40” bar on his chainsaw and made beautiful smooth rounds -- very impressive. In this form, the wood can be used to create natural play features at Kiwanis Park. They’ll make great imaginary lilly pads, bases for mini-gazeboes, or climbing sculptures. Some of the walnut is being carved into a rocket ship to replace the broken, plastic, green, frog spring-rider. A few mushroom seats are being carved as well. The rest will probably end up as a balancing structure made from piled and secured limbs. Both the walnut and the white oak provide a fair degree of rot resistance and we’ll use low-toxicity preservatives and best practices to prevent decay, but the tree can continue to provide play value even after it begins to succumb to the elements.

Recycling in action.

Wood staged near its new home.
This round measures about 3' x 5'