Trees, wood and material culture

Another of our essential practices is forestry and small scale green woodworking. Throughout history it has been vital to be able to turn trees into useful objects, tools, containers, implements, and buildings. We perpetuate these living traditions to repair what we have and make new objects. It is essential to us to show apprentices how to select, harvest, safely fell and move trees, how to hew, rive and split green stock into all the components needed to construct the material world.

Ira Allen, one of the founders of the state of Vermont said the following of the Vermont farmer:

“I am really at a loss in the classification of the inhabitants – they are all farmers, and again every farmer is a mechanic in some line or another, as inclination leads or necessity requires. The hand that guides the plow frequently constructs it.”