ROCK.  A lump of sandstone that I found in the garden a few years back, and saved thinking I might someday carve it into something, or teach a grandchild how to chip rock.

WOOD.  A small bit of Curley Ash, cut a hundred years ago from a wide, thick plank that had a sharp bend in it. A crook. A sharp bend that was the reason a long ago farmer cut the tree, milled the planks and kept them safe in his attic. Those planks were destined to be shaped into runners for a horse-drawn sled. There were three such planks, all cut from the same tree tree trunk, all crooked and saved in the attic, and all sharing these delightfully tight curls in the grain.  When that portion of the old farm house was torn down, forty years ago, I saved the sled-crooks for myself, until yesterday when I cut into one of them.

ROCK & WOOD.  I created a sculpture from the hand-split ash chunk and the rock. I call it “Sailing in Vermont.” Here it sits, a gift for my friend Justin on his fortieth birthday. It sits on a table I made for Justin and his family ten years ago out of thick hand-plained boards from the walls of yet a another two-hundred year-old farmhouse.

When treasures like these come together, I am glad for such gatherings.