Sometimes, I have the impression the energetic beech has given its wood too much power and tension. These were the thoughts I was pondering when I was thinking about using local beech for solid wood flooring and furniture. It was the same temptation or impulse that excites the mountain climber to climb the highest mountain tops which spurred me on to tackle the vigorous, hard and extremely robust wood of beech trees.
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The wood is a light-reddish color, visually evenly and calm/quiet and because it is hard wood it is hard-wearing. However, there is one characteristic which makes it difficult to work with. Solid, untreated Beech wood is in constant movement like no other wood. It swells and warps more than all the other native Austrian Wood species.
Beech trees are the ones foresters love seeing most. In mixed forests, beech leaves make particularly good mulch and the trees' roots macerate the ground more than others do. Their roots go deeper than the surface roots of spruce trees and the magnificent mighty crown protects younger trees. This nurturing character trait of the beech tree gave it the nickname: 'Mother of the Forest'.
On the way home, I pondered whether to find scientific evidence for this phenomenon or just to be grateful for the lessons learned. It is possible to increase the natural resistance of wood to insects and fungus. It starts right in the forest when selecting the trees carefully and timing the harvest correctly.
Of course, I had heard of this old country lore. I also knew from experience that wood logged in winter had different components and ingredients to the one cut in summer. Its natural resistance against fungus and insects is higher compared to the one logged in summer. However it was new to me, to find out the moon phase had such an influence on the Woods' resistance to insect infestation.
These insects easily pick the weakest tree from a thousand logs, the one which counters their infestation with the least flow of resin and immunity. From these observations I concluded that it was not an accident with what I experienced with the two wood stacks on the meadow.
"The one who cuts trees around Christmas time, His house will be safe and fine. Around Fabian and Sebastian The juices start to run." The only obvious difference for me was the different moon phase when they were harvested and maybe the selection of trees. It was not possible to scientifically explain why the bark beetle preferred his logs to mine; they were stacked just 80 meters apart from each other. From all those years of experience when I was looking after my forestry as a district forester, I knew that bark beetles have a very fine, incredibly accurate sense of direction and gustatory system.
The same wood out of the same forest, on the same meadow stored for the same length of time and logged in the same month of the year - only at the wrong moon phase! His logs were greatly infested with bark beetles. One drill hole was next to the other, every few centimeters. All logs were affected without exception!
The owner was in the building industry himself and well aware of the circumstances. At the wood stack, I handed him an axe and we both looked very closely at and under the bark for any bark beetle infestation. Nothing! About 80 meters away, some of the neighbor's logs were left behind.
What then happened was utterly amazing. The anticipated phone call from the forester didn't come. It was mid-June and hot days and warm nights announced midsummer. There was no doubt that by now even the laziest bark beetle was up and working hard. On one of those summer days, I took the young couple whose house this wood was meant for to check on the logs.
I told Franz that if he found even one beetle in my logs, he was to immediately ring me and I would change all plans and send a truck the next day to pick them up for processing straight away. This agreement was perfect for me. I could rely on the critical eye of the forester and also save myself a couple of control hikes up the mountains.
He was responsible for not having any wood lying around that could trigger an infestation of these beetles. I fully understood his concern but also knew that we needed a few more weeks at the saw mill before we could get to the logs from 'Gerlosspass'. Once the round wood has been debarked and sliced into boards, the bark beetles aren't interested in it as a feeding or breeding ground and the risk is mitigated.
Every time I walked up there and checked, I was reassured and returned at ease. There was no trace of bark beetles at all (those beetles drill into the bark and wood and you can spot their presence by their small drilling dust mounds which appear everywhere). In May, the local forester came with some concern about the log stacks.
It is true that logs lying for long periods with the bark still attached are an ideal breeding ground for insects and that dreaded bark beetle and I was well aware that my wood hadn't been debarked. However, my spruce and larches had been logged at the right time and I was confident and didn't worry. When May approached, I did get a bit restless though and made regular checks on the logs.
No one was afraid that any wood would be swapped or accidentally taken away. A short time later, two meters of thick snowcaps covered both stacks and the logs stayed there untouched until late spring. This year we had a lot of extra work with sawing all the trees we had logged in different areas on those days in December and again in January.
To avoid any confusion, I made sure 'our' logs were stacked separately about 100 meters distance from the edge of the forest. The workers stayed on and kept felling trees which were sold to a wood yard. The logging crew left the other logs about 80 meters away from ours. Both groups of sawyers were in agreement and happy to trust each other.
The harvest of the trees proceeded according to my plans and we finished logging at new moon in Capricorn and the impulse changed from waning to waxing. Nothing extraordinary would have happened, if fate hadn't accidentally intervened. The forester was so interested to keep the workers on for a few days longer, to cut more wood in the same area.
The workers were not the only ones who were curious. The head forester too looked at me with a strange expression when I insisted on specific days for the tree-felling. I fully respected his opinion, however I did insist on having it my way. The only thing which was important for me was that the particular dates were adhered to. Therefore I was present on site, in the snowy-white mountain forest.
At Christmas in December 1992, a group of forestry workers made their way up to the 'Gerlospass', the passage between the 'Upper Salzachtal' and the 'Zillertal' (Tyrolean Alps), to harvest a number of spruce and larches. The workers knew that those trees had been selected by me and that I specified a particular time for their harvest. The men were starting to wonder why particular days of the year were suddenly of such importance. When one said: "This Thoma guy, he is a forester so he should know."
Our logs had been cut into boards in spring and stacked to air dry before the hot summer came along. Because of these Swiss pine logs, we now had strong evidence that the moon and the harvesting time of wood had an influence on longevity and resistance to insects and fungus. We also came across larch and spruce trees which were not attacked by anything either.
We had so much work with making hay and nobody had the time to get the wood down the mountains." I thought: "He is fooling me". "No, no, this is not a joke," answered the farmer. Now I understood - he had them cut last year on 21 December when the moon was waning in Capricorn. We too were harvesting trees for wood flooring on the same day last year, but we didn't test how long we could leave them up there.
When the farmer arrived with his last load of wood, he let me into his secret: "Yes, me too. I am glad that the boards turned out so pristinely. I was really quite worried about it being damaged this last summer, it's been so hot and humid. The cut logs were stacked in the forest for nearly a whole year.
The boards and beams which came out of the saw however were pristine white and crisp. No traces of blue fungal blotches and bark beetles at all. Both should definitely have been present if the logs were stacked in the woods or in storage during this hot summer. Only if those boards had been harvested very recently, could they be this white.
The beautiful scent of the trees wafted throughout the whole mill; however I couldn't make any sense of what I saw: the round logs didn't look as if they were harvested only recently. The abutting surfaces were tanned by the sun as if the logs had been stacked throughout all of summer.
It was uncommon for a farmer to turn up with Swiss pine in September. If there was no obvious need, no one would cut them in the hot summer months, particularly not such a large quantity! The risk of the wood turning blue in the hot and humid weather was too big. So I was curious and present when the first logs went through the saw mill the next week.
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