A homeowner in Boise asked me why I was saving a piece of the old oak

We were taking down a big, sick pin oak in her yard last fall. As we were chipping, I pulled a solid, straight section of a lower limb aside, about four feet long. She saw me do it and came over, really curious. She said, 'You're not chipping that? What's it for?' I told her it was good wood, and I was going to take it back to the shop to dry and maybe make a mallet handle. She just stood there for a second and then said, 'I never thought about the tree living on like that.' It was a simple thing, but her saying that made the whole job feel different. It wasn't just about removing a problem. Has anyone else had a small comment from a client change how you saw a routine job?

3 comments

3 Comments

blake_lopez5726d ago

Yeah, that's a really good point. It's easy to just see a tree as a thing to cut up and haul away. When someone stops you and actually sees the wood as something with a future, it makes you slow down. I've had a few folks ask if they could keep some cookies for side tables or a slice for their kid to paint on. It changes the job from cleanup to a sort of handoff. You're not just getting rid of it, you're giving parts of it a second life.

murphy.lee26d ago

Totally get that. I saved a big piece of maple for a guy who makes guitars, and it just felt better. Last week a neighbor took some branches for her garden beds. Makes the whole thing less wasteful.

jadel6512d ago

Last year we had a huge oak come down, and I made sure to cut a few clean 3-foot sections for a local woodturner. It's way more work to set those aside neatly instead of just feeding the chipper, but watching him load up that rough wood like it was treasure made it worth it. You start looking at every job differently, scanning for what might be useful to someone. That handoff feeling beats just turning everything into mulch.