Yaupon Trees

Do y'all remember a while back advising me to go out and just sit in the woods and calm my soul? Well, I did, in a way. I went out in search of a yaupon tree to make a bow out of. (Not a very useful venture.) I found a pretty little straight tree and cut it down with an axe I had borrowed from Dad's shed and proceeded to measure, trim, and “peel” it. I don't know how much experience y'all have with yaupon, but if you don't get all of the saturated wood off of the tree it turns this nice greenish-brown color. But it carves right off, just another layer of wood. Well, inside this little tree there were veins. I don't know what else to call them, and that's what they looked like. They're a rich brown color to contrast the pale cream color of the freshly carved wood. They start in various places and grow smaller as they proceed up the tree. But new veins start periodically just as big as the lower ones. I realized this after working on the first two layers for about 45 minutes. So I set to exposing these veins. I found two main ones and followed them up the tree. It was a painstaking process to carve out just enough to expose the richest color without removing the entire vein in each place. I actually went through too far in several spots and there are little half-centimeter gaps in the path. But it was very rewarding work. I set it in the rafters to dry and might go out and find a bigger one to work on next Saturday. I’m really glad I had that chance. It’s very cool to find hidden treasures in nature. Just thought that was worth mentioning. Love and hugs. Toodles y’all.