I Think the Birch Will Win.

       I made a rather rash post a little while ago. I described taking down my birch tree and that my wife had asked that the stump be left long. She wanted to do something with the stump which I thought was carving. Now I had the sneaking suspicion that I would be ordered to do the job. I know that my talent in this area is completely lacking.

The stump was a meter and a half or five feet.

      The first thing I was requested to do is trim the top of the stump in a vee shape. Now chain saws are not at all precise ...especially in my hands. That worked out not too badly and after 4 hours of sanding it looks pretty good.

Not bad for angle but a little rough.

      The next request was to peel the bark off at the top of the stump. Where I started taking off bark I had a surprise as the bark did not come off like it was supposed to. I found out that over half of the tree was dead at that level. Where the tree was living , the bark pealed off nicely.

Peeling the bark took some time.

    Now when I got the bark off and looked I found a surprise. There was a face that had been hiding under the bark for about 40 years. What luck! Maybe I won't have to carve it after all. 

Now I swear that I see a face. Too bad I took the guy's fore head off.

   I showed the face to my wife but she wasn't impressed. Now I found out that her idea was to paint the outline of a house on the stump. I had to sand  the side of the stump as some of the bark had stayed on. Then she prepared a stencil and put it on the tree and said, "Paint this." She gave me brown paint. After some very careful painting when I looked up and the thing was a total disaster. I called my wife to look at the output and she was disappointed too. 

    So I think the birch won on this go round. I might have to crawl on my hands and knees to my friend Bob or maybe talk to Far Side about this project!