Weathering the drought

what an interesting perspective on life… this is a thin line in the rings of a tree… cool.

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Happy to hear you got some rain. This past summer up here in central Ontario, Canada…....pretty dry, 40 days without a drop.

Less rain means wider growth rings, more rain means tighter growth rings. You need look no further then looking at old growth timber being timber cut more then 100 years agio. You will find consistant, very tight growth rings where as you look at lumber cut today, much wider lines. Trees are similar to people in that when they are starved, they store fat. If you dont eat something upon waking, your body wont metabolize fat and will store it, where as if you do eat, the body starts to metabolize what you eat.

100 years ago we had pretty consistant rainfall patterns as well as pretty consistant temperature patterns which have now been altered due to our own greed for a large “carbon footprint”. Alas one of favorite things are “toys that run on gasoline” but it would appear that this comes at a price beyond the $$ sticker value.

Regardless, wood is always a pleasure to work with!

Regards

-- http://www.furnituremann.ca/

We too, had a very dry summer, even for a desert. Thankfully, we’ve had some moisture of late and snow on the ground now. We knew of your troubles and also knew it was freaky weather for your area. Hope it continues.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

Roman, here is a link for you.
http://www.icogitate.com/~tree/treerings.ac04.htm

Read the part about what makes tree rings different. Its basically exactly opposite of what you imagine.

Also i know its hip and cool to be on the “bashing mankind” bandwagon. I’ll just suggest that the study of tree rings before we came along won’t support your idea of man made climate change, any more than your idea of how to interpret tree rings.

-- miles125, Alabama.."Architecture is frozen music""

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0906-7590.2004.03869.x?cookieSet=1&journalCode=eco

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/determining_climate_record.html

too much information but as to the best of my reading and in 25 years or more of working with wood that is both “Old Growth” timber and “New Growth” timber from southern Ontario, and with very few exceptions, the growth rings on all the old timber is very tightly lined, almost hard to count where as newer timber, the growth rings seem to reach 1/8” to almost 1/4” in width and all of the above is typical of species including ash, elm, white and red oaks, hemlock, pine, and spruce to name a few.

why is that?

Regards

-- http://www.furnituremann.ca/