149: Coldholler lumber for Angus's kindergarten project

Today, we used the Coldholler blog for educational purposes -- Angus's class needed a bench of sorts, about a foot high, 6 feet long, and two feet deep, to help smaller kids reach the SmartBoard.

I used wood from our logging operation, big trees grown here.  I preassembled it, making all the cuts and using thick slabs of white pine for the sides and legs and a thinner, pretty length of poplar for the top.  It came together using decking screws, but half of the top was pre-drilled for wooden pegs so that it could be removed to access storage.

The kids helped carry it in from the truck, forming two long lines, one on each side.  I talked about counting 100 rings on several stumps, and told them that means our trees are a century old.  Showed them this post, portraying trees before they were cut, and this one, showing them stacked at the sawmill yard, and this one, showing how they get cut into boards.

Then, we used homemade mallets to pound in the pegs, pre-cut in 2" lengths from a 1/2-inch-diameter dowel.  Each kid got to pound in a peg or apply wood glue.

Local products, learning, and utility.  All-in-all, a good use of trees from Coldholler!