During a Sunday afternoon field trip, I found, in the northern industrial area of downtown Denver a salvage yard with stocked full of treasures piled high within it’s chain linked fence. The proprietor came out in his cowboy hat to greet us, and he talked fast and dense; his monologues ranged from the death of business relationships by the hands of the internet, the disregard for the middlemen, and of global geopolitical manufacturing miseries, and american atrophies of craftsmanship. This all filled my ears as much as his relics filled my eyes. He no doubt had much to say, and it seemed in general an agreeable tone of grumble, and I am sure there were some gems of insight tucked in his words, but I was more interested in the piles of wood and furniture tucked under his tarps in the melting snow.
In the end, I walked away with a cut end of a heart-wood beam, made of Douglas Fir. The notch cut in the end likely is from it’s service as a header or floor joist from a barn or building in the Denver area. It was a very rough cut and had weathered – either in the salvage yard or while part of the building it held up, and was almost a solid black color.
With planing, sanding, and oiling, it got close enough to use as a nightstand, and with a few quick cuts with a handsaw, I hope to keep the chargers for phones and iPods behaving and remaining in place.
