‘Enough is a feast.’
She watched me; her head cocked to one side. I could feel her eyes follow my hand as I picked the black currant and bit into it. For a moment my lip quivered, and my eyebrow spasmed uncontrollably.
Not quite ripe yet, then.
As I walked away, I saw her leave her perch on the wood pile and flutter to the bush, take a currant and fly away again. We had performed this little ritual for the last few days and would do so for a few more. It’s the same every year.
Thoughts of the feast to come filled my head as I wandered across the field to the woods, saw in hand. While I waited for that perfect moment of ripeness, I had things to do, to occupy my mind and my hands. There was a set of chairs to make for a small kitchen table. I replaced mental pictures of bountiful bushes with the forms of the chairs to be created, considering what I would need.
Stepping into the woods and looking around I saw lush greenness everywhere my eye fell. The sweet freshness of rain from the night before rose to greet me and filled my lungs with joy. Glittering droplets hung on the tips of leaves, and as I moved through them, fell silently to the ground – each drop a reservoir of life for the microscopic life teeming beneath my feet.
The plan was to make two armchairs and 2 side-chairs, so I did the mental calculations of what I would need to harvest. 8 tall, straight, lengths for the back legs, another 8 shorter for the front, enough for the stretchers, some pieces for the arms and, of course, the spindles. I could feel my head start to spin a little as I tried to do the calculations, and not least because of the dawning realisation of the physical exertion required to carry home the quantity required.
I sat down for a moment and drank in the view, breathing deeply of the air, and let things settle. Its always a good plan. Did I really need to have that perfect symmetry between the individual parts? If so, I would need to find a growth for each piece, taking, perhaps, only a small portion for what I needed and leaving the rest behind me, wasted. Granted, it would feed the woods, over time, but it would also leave great unsightly gaps in the magical canvas that was spread out before me.
So, what if I could get a back leg, and a front leg out of a single piece, even if they were not perfectly straight, or symmetrical with its counterpart? Perhaps, when cut, the lovely taper that would flow from one into the other would be a pleasing visual feature! Better still, the off cuts could, in all probability, be used for stretchers. It would require a more careful search and selection, to get close to where I wanted to be, but it would be worth it; I would be taking less than half of what was originally anticipated, and all I had to do was relax the iron grip of wanting things to be exactly as I desired . It would be enough. There would be plenty left for another time, and I wouldn’t be buckling under the weight of it all as I padded home with my prize.
When I got home with my materials, she was still there on the wood pile, patiently waiting for time and the sun to work their magic on the fruit. Looking at her I smiled at the thought of the dance to come.
To fit the small kitchen table the chairs were to be quite compact and of quite specific dimensions. I had chatted about what was needed at some length, then measured and re-measured, to be sure. So, I confidently set to marking out, cutting and laying out the pieces for each chair, and they began to take form, at least in my minds eye. As it turned out, I had enough in what I had collected, with a little left over, as a contingency, in case of minor disaster.
Inside the workshop there was silence except for the sound of a blade slicing through fresh cut wood. Outside was an absolute riot of bird song. Nesting season was in full flow and the parents worked tirelessly to feed their broods. There was constant movement accompanied by joyous song filling the garden, and there was no lack of insects and fruits to satisfy their needs. It seemed we all had just what we needed.
Each morning I tasted the fruit on my way to the workshop and the Blackbird watched me from her usual spot. We were getting close.
Things progressed.
I cut eighty small wedges from half an ash log I retrieved from the pile and began to put bits of wood together so that they started to resemble chairs. Once driven home there was no turning back.
Abundance – Greenwood Hazel and Yew Armchair – Jason Robards
Abundance—Greenwood-Hazel-And-Yew-Chair—Jason-Robards
There’s a finality at this point that is quite satisfying, though also a little fraught, as there is still time for things to go a little awry, to say the least. The seats and arms can hurtle into a cosmic miasma that implodes in excruciating disaster turning every effort, to this point, into nothing.
With this thought I turned to the seats.
The boards I intended to use were propped up against the wall, just next to the growing pile of off-cuts and bits still to find a use. I looked from one to the other and then back again. All reason seemed to evaporate through the top of my head as a malicious thought invited disaster; or, perhaps, it was the voice of reason.
As if on autopilot, I saw my arms reach out and start to gather up the off-cuts and lay them out on the workbench. Little beads of perspiration broke out on my temples, and I realised resistance was futile – as with so many things in life. Still, its fun to try sometimes.
Soon there were bits and pieces placed into 4 separate piles and a notion was forming. However, the notion (of which I have many and varied) was one thing, a fine idea, but the technicalities were something else. So, a cuppa and some bread and cheese were in order, while I mulled over how I was going to do this. I knew the ‘whys’, just not yet the ‘how’s’. While enjoying the fine old cheese and fretting over trivial things I recalled a wise fellow once telling me that, ‘in order to have more time, do less.’ It’s an exhortation I have tried to realise to its fullest extent over the years, with a quite reasonable degree of success. So, realising I needed to take time to think a bit I decided to leave work on the chairs for the time-being and go for a walk.
It turned out to be a long walk, and an even longer period of staring into space, or checking the currants and commiserating with the Blackbird at the slowness of progress. But, when I did return, it was with an answer, an idea, a solution, of sorts, at once structural, and hopefully aesthetic.
I wandered to the log pile for another small log from the seemingly endless supply, nodded to the Blackbird, and made some pegs; they would be the lynchpin on which success or failure would hang.
Abundance—Greenwood-Hazel-And-Yew-Chair—Jason-Robards
Abundance—Greenwood-Hazel-And-Yew-Chair—Jason-Robards
I’ll admit that I was somewhat relieved at the result.
And, flushed with this minor success I pressed boldly on with the arms, which, surprisingly, did not cause any great difficulties – for a change. Though I did have to spend a little time in a rather contorted position with a spokeshave trying to reduce the profile of one arm that just grated my senses. Then all was done, bar the waxing.
I closed the workshop doors with a degree of contentment I don’t often experience when I have finished a chair – or, as in this case, chairs. Buoyed up by this unusual satisfaction I decided to check the currants to see if they were ready for harvesting. I lingered over the bush, enumerating the great quantity of fruits and the sense pleasure to come, before selecting a likely candidate and plucking it from its branch.
Not bad! Tomorrow will be the day.
Next morning as I went out to finish the chairs with a final wax and polish, I almost skipped to the bush. But, that’s the trouble with expectations – they often lead to disappointments. I stopped dead in my tracks and then had to have a little laugh to myself. The bush had been stripped bare – not a single currant left. I would almost take an oath that I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a rather portly Blackbird struggling to stay airborne, cackling manically to herself.
I consoled myself with the thought of the few that I had managed to eat. The memory of those fresh flavours on those bright clear mornings will sustain me for a very long time. There was more than enough to go around. Still, I made a mental note to make sure to put a net over the bushes next year; the same as I had last year and the years preceding that!
Abundance—Greenwood-Hazel-And-Yew-Chair—Jason-Robards
I hope the table supports a wealth of healthy, hearty, satisfying fare, and the chairs are pulled up to it with joy – that there is always just enough to make a feast.
‘One must not make too much of anything in life, good or bad.’
Joseph Conrad.