Over the years, I have come to know many stories and reports where trees were felled in winter on specific days. In one story, these green logs, still frozen, were taken out of the forest and installed as barn floors. In this particular barn wheat was to be threshed on the floor.
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I have visited him nearly every year over the past 30 years. The floor is still there, exactly as we laid it. There are no gaps whatsoever between the floorboards. You couldn't even insert a razor blade! You really get the impression that the boards have merged together. That was the remarkable story of an old Tyrolean carpenter.
Now I was really curious and took on the job. The green round logs were sawn and dressed straight away. I still remember it was difficult to get them through the dressing machine, because the boards still contained a lot of moisture. Afterwards we didn't wait and installed the nearly frozen boards as the farmer wanted us to.
I didn't want to do a job which was going to look appalling at the end. The farmer was laughing and said: "You are right; however it is different with the wood I brought you. Those spruce were logged at exactly the right moon phase and position. Carpenter, please don't worry, you can take on this job and I will pay you."
I was very surprised and explained to the farmer that this was impossible to do. Flooring boards need to have been dried before they are laid. It would be best if floorboards can air-dry for a year or even more.
Green flooring boards keep drying after they have been installed, they shrink, and the floor ends up with large gaps. The development of our operations was going along with the fast technological developments of the times. A local farmer visited us shortly after my exams, around Christmas time. "Carpenter, please build a wood floor for my hallway. I would like you to do this very soon. I have recently harvested the wood for it in my forest," and he showed me the trailer standing in front of the house, loaded with his freshly harvested spruce.
The merging floorboards
I remember the incredible story of a 60-year-old carpenter which I will share with you. "Shortly after I finished my master builder trade exams, I started my independent career in my parental company. As a young carpenter, I was very enthusiastic about new and modern technical advances which were developing all the time and I didn't pay too much attention to old traditional ways of harvesting trees at certain times of the year. As far as I can trace it, all the well preserved buildings were built with slow and traditional methods. The minimum requirement was to cut the trees in winter while the moon is waning. Even better are the days just before the New Moon in Capricorn.
The 'Abbrandlerhoefe' however, those farms which needed to be rebuilt hastily after a fire and couldn't possibly be built that way. Harvesting hay happens in midsummer when the heat causes the fermentation of hay and its combustion. Therefore building wood needed to be logged in the hot part of the year and often didn't even have time to dry properly. This does influence the quality and longevity of the building.
A project of this kind and needed to be planned carefully and was worked on over a period of time. All the accumulated experience of farmers, talented carpenters and trades people contributed to a lasting building. Due to this tradition and attitude of our ancestors, we now have buildings hundreds of years old and still functioning.
Time was scarce too. Large farmer families, including the farmhands and animals, needed to have a new roof above their heads before the next cold winter would descend from the glaciers and surrounding mountains. Over many centuries, building a farm in a very short time was only an exemption due to a catastrophe. A farm was built for many generations to come, not just the grand kids.
Living and surviving in this harsh and steep alpine environment has always kept these people closely knit. After such a disaster, neighbors would work together and help the owners to log the trees and swiftly start working on the new building which was then called the 'Abbrandlerhof'.
This sometimes causes the hay to ignite all by itself and is called spontaneous combustion. Quite a few stately and very old farm houses have turned to ash and rubble in this way. For most of the 'Salzburger' alpine farms, there is an existing privilege. In the case of a burned down farm, the farmer is allowed to cut trees for building materials in the state forest free of charge.
In the hot and humid midsummer days when thunderstorms are brewing, farmers often have to rush and bring in the still moist hay before a downpour. This way the hay might not get soaked in the rain, however a much more dangerous threat to the hay barn and farm buildings is lurking: A bale of hay only half dry starts fermenting and in just a few short hours develops an incredible internal heat.
'Abbrandlerhoefe' - farms which have been rebuilt after a fire
This is the name given to farms in the area of the 'Salzburger Land' which were rebuilt after a fire. Bringing in the harvested hay, especially the second cut which is called the 'grummet', always poses a certain risk and sleepless nights for the farmer. You didn't hear anything and later the stacked logs were absolutely quiet too. By the time they were piled up, dried and transported to the saw mill, a few cracks did appear - however, just a tiny fraction of what would have been normal. At the sawmill we were elated. We knew that if we now stack and dry this wood properly, the wood would be calm. We actually were able to quiet tension loaded beech with simple measures and we were rewarded wonderfully calm wood for our projects.
We haven't done anything different but not one log has cracked yet!" With his broad hand he wiped the sweat and sawdust of his forehead and looked over to his colleague who agreed, nicking his head. The forester was skeptical when he heard that I was planning by the moon phases, but now he was puzzled too. He sold many beech batches, but never was it so quiet.
Our beeches were cut by two older wood loggers; both of whom have worked in this particular mixed deciduous forest for many years. The older one was shaking his head when he greeted me at the location: "I have been harvesting beech trees here for 30 years now and never experienced anything like this.
On those 'best wood days', my wife and children don't seen much of me. I spend them in the forest and mountains and see how the selected trees are doing. I make sure the harvest dates are being adhered to and help out where needed. Naturally, I was present when the time for harvest came for the said beech trees in the foothills.
Here, one sometimes thinks a thunder storm is closing in. It happens all the time that the tension-loaded tree trunk cracks and splits the stem's lengths. Freshly cut and stacked, beech wood will crack and groan long after the workers have left the site. Particularly when the sun heats up moist logs, you can hear them crack and splinter with a sound reminiscent of loud thunder.
For the forester and loggers, this was new and he was present for most of the time. He never encountered a customer who insisted the trees be cut a specific time. There is a marked difference between beech and spruce trees. When cutting the long logs of spruce to the desired length, one only gets to hear the sound of the chainsaw, but this is different with beech logs.
Old trees had to give way by falling down after centuries of growth or by being harvested. The forest, the location and the trees suited my plans and I bought the trees. The time of harvest was worked out exactly and noted down. A few months later, just after Christmas when the moon was favorable, my trees were logged.
I remember this anecdote of the time when we logged the first beeches. I chose the trees in the northern foothills of the Austrian Alps. The forest floor was already covered with young descendants of beech, ash and maple trees standing in the shade of tall, old trees. These youngsters needed more space and were waiting their turn to grow into the light.
It happens again and again that carpenters jump out of their seats when I show photos of beech floors in my PowerPoint presentations. They cannot believe a solid floor made with local beech would ever lie steady and not move. It's only when I invite them to look at the floors that those skeptics are transformed into believers.
We trusted the tried and true methods we have used for most of the other native wood: we choose trees which had grown steadily (stress-free) on humus-rich forest floor. The time of logging would be right and the stacking and drying process would be naturally slow. Nevertheless, our floors made of beech gave us the biggest challenge and triggered countless discussions in coming years.
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