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Wisdom Through Wood with Alex Jerrim
This all happened a year ago and although rain has fallen and bark split on our lathe, so carefully crafted, these experiences can’t really be forgotten. It’s easy to blame the city for getting in the way, inner city gardens with no supple branches to spin string, no green wood to turn, but what is really stopping me from getting out and escaping the smoke and the traffic light ticking? It’s time to remember why I started this blog, not just to share my love of permaculture, although this is still my passion, but to document life and not let the important things slip away in the drudgery of the everyday. Of late I feel like I have been waiting for something to happen, it’s time to unshackle…
Let’s go back to November of last year and remember a man who dreamed of a timber cottage made by his own hands, from trees he cut down on land that was his. Alex slowly constructed with every spare moment for over a decade, then with it finished and beautiful, he welcomed in his brother and his wife. He moved back into his studio cabin, where he had stayed whilst he built. He dreamed of another beautiful timber house across the rolling green hills within in sight and sound, a community and share his passion for green woodworking – Wisdom Through Wood.
From the city we sailed in a ship across the Bass Strait to learn Alex’s craft. Welcomed into his world where platapi swam in a bubbling creek and pink breasted robins darted just out of sight. It’s easy to romantacise a place when you only spend a week there in the height of spring, but it seemed like Eden. We had a tent, but his sister in law, Penny, insisted we use their caravan and that night found it toasty warm with a thoughtful heater and a made up bed, I could have cried from their kindness.
The course began with mindfulness, planting trees to replacd those we would take and then some. Acacia and eucalyptus to repair erosion around the river. With these tiny, fragile seedlings in our hands it was hard to image they would one day tower above us, and linger long after we become soil.
Our workshop was the bush, a tarp over our heads to stop the rain, but otherwise uninterrupted views. A crackling fire and a constant supply of tea to warm the belly, and homemade cakes to set greedy eyes alight. A step above ‘pat your head and rub your stomach’, working the lathe took some coordination, but watching Alex at work it looked effortless, his soft rhythmic scratching of chisel on damp white wood a soothing constant “crrr crrr crrr”. Our efforts resulted in a song that would require censorship a “crr crr CRRRRRR &%%$^%$!” as a moment of distraction scoured a line across our timorous efforts. But with practice and Alex’s constant and unwavering confidence in our abilities we fell into a meditative pattern, wood shavings falling like snow.
I felt frustration over my weakness compared to these men when it came time to split logs for turning and even more so when it came to sawing, but Alex was patient, and persistent, he didn’t let me give up and that gave me strength to persevere and I was glad I did as the pride you feel when you finally succeed is so much sweeter the harder it is to get there.
When we chose our tree to fell we got so caught up in the practicalities of the task, how straight the trunk was, where it would fall and the thrill of it all that mindfulness was forgotten. It was sobering when Cam said he felt we should thank the tree. It had stood their for possibly the same amount of years as I had been on this earth and I was thankful, and felt a twinge at taking its life, but it would live on as beautiful furniture that would outlast us all, a different fate to too much old growth forest that become so much tissues. How easy it is to distance yourself when you are in the comfortable city, so much paper wasted, it’s good to reconnect with nature.
Working together to cut a tree down by hand creates a bond, a shared excitement as you hear that crack, we all scattered as the mighty tree toppled so slowly and crashed to the ground. Then like butchers we examined the fallen, and carved it up to be turned green. Fresh wood like this is a completely different beast, soft like butter under the knife, rather than brittle; biting your tools. Why do we always struggle so much against nature? Alex’s exclamations at the beauty of every piece of timber, even turned under a novice hand filled us up with joy, and opened our eyes to a childlike delight in texture, grain and beauty of imperfection. You will never meet someone with a more genuine passion than Alex, and it is infectious.
Cam turned what he learned into such beautiful detailing, it was an inspiration to see. He was staying on a friends boat nearby and further north along the mainland coast he lived his days as a carpenter and slept his nights in his own handcrafted boat, rocked gently by the waves. Another life it was hard not to romantasise, for all the hardships that he must have endured breaking from convention. I wish I had the guts to sail away, metaphorically perhaps, as my seasickness is legend among those who have ever traveled on deck with me sans seasickness tablets.
We made a lathe and saw horse, that are now waiting for their time to be dusted free of leaves and used again. I long to use them, I can’t look at them. Dylan also made a stool which I contributed one turned leg, a work of love. I turned a rattle for a baby that was waiting to be born, the moment when the rings were released pure joy and relief. Our hearts were full.
But our hosts weren’t finished with us , Penny and Alex’s brother Pete invited us into their home for a dinner party, and such delights to eat and drink and beautiful conversation I have not had since. The next day we drove away with hearts heavy, Pademelons lazily munching on green hills becoming specks and gone.
Life is too short to not fill with experiences such as these, time to reconnect don’t you think?
