A variety of wooden disks, raw cedar (bottom left), a burl (bottom right) and two crosscuts with bark on them still (top right), and a straight cut piece I got for free because she liked what I was doing with them and it had chainsaw scrapings on the opposite side.

The fiancee and I drove down (45 min.) to Ithaca Farmers Market, Saturday, August 3rd.  We try to get down to it a couple of times a season.  We like to check out some of the 150 vendors that attend over the season.  She gets some stuff for our landscaping efforts, possibly something for dinner that week and we try the various product samples available.

This year, like many past years, the skilled efforts of a nice lady and her husband, Ginny and Chris Gartlein of the Raintree Farm, were on display again.  Ginny makes a variety of wood products notably from crosscuts of wood branches looking for the more interesting patterns in the growth rings.

If any of you have ever checked out rare woods, you might know there are some interesting patterns that can be had of woods even in everyday woods like pine and oak.  But the more interesting patterns don’t come from branches or trunks directly.  The marbling pattern found in some wood pieces comes from the burl which can be a “cancer” of the tree, an injury or results of parasite growths like fungus and such.

A burl.

As usual I found the loose disks she makes for her various checkerboards (shown on small quilted samples from a stall down way at the market) and coasters or other oddments.  She stores them hidden in the back where odd people like me come in and find them.

Naturally, I bought some.  See above.