Tree Farmer - July/August 2008 - (Page 18)

Bowled Over: a Craftsman Reveals His trees’ Inner Beauty By robertson KAren S. “it takes a long time to chop up a cherry tree with an adze and a hatchet.” That’s what my husband, Tree Farmer robbie robertson, discovered when he retired from his job and found himself in the business of crafting hand-hewn wooden bowls. wedding gift for him. Our friend suggested we bring him some wood from our Tree Farm so the bowl would have special meaning—made from wood from our own place. Remembering a fallen cherry tree on family property, Robbie took a few large pieces to our friend — and kept some of the wood to give the craft a try. The result was so good that our son received the bowl made by our friend from the family tree — and the one Robbie had crafted. He enjoyed the creative process so much he made several more bowls for Christmas gifts that year. Robbie has just kept chopping, and so far has made more than 60 bowls from that cherry tree and plenty of other hardwoods as well. When people began noticing and buying his bowls, he formally opened Berry Creek Bowls, named after a small creek on the Tree Farm. And how did this part-time farmer go from tending trees to chopping them? For 25 years Robbie was employed as a school administrator, working on his family’s 500-acre farm in southwest Mississippi in his spare time, raising beef cattle and tending to the timber growing there. About four years ago he decided to get out of the cattle business, selling all of his crossbred Brahman stock and turning his pastures into pine plantation instead. Robbie also continued to manage several family-owned acres of native pine and hardwoods. “My wife says she loves the trees because they don’t break out of the fence and get loose on the road nearly as often as those cattle did,” he likes to joke. When our son graduated from college and married, we visited a friend in the area who made bowls to find a special a Patient Process Chopping a wooden bowl requires a skill that comes with very few instruction manuals. “The only advice I was given when I began chopping was three-fold: use an adze and a hatchet, a random-orbital sander, and Danish oil. I just learned by the seat of my pants — by trial and error,” Robbie says. The process of bowl making, though not extremely complicated, is time-consuming, laborious, and requires lots of patience. But if creating a one-ofa-kind heirloom piques your interest, then bowl making may be right up your alley. The first step in chopping a bowl is selecting the wood. Most hardwoods lend themselves readily to bowl mak- 18 Tree Farmer JU LY/AU G U ST 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Tree Farmer - July/August 2008

Tree Farmer - July/August 2008
Contents
Top 10 Legal Concerns
Cover Story
Bowled Over
Wildlife Matters
From Your Committees
Ties to the Land
Tools & Techniques
Tribute

Tree Farmer - July/August 2008