A few weeks ago I contacted the grounds manager here at the Big U about possibly getting a small tree trunk from them, as they did their rounds. I wasn't all that overwhelmed by the sincerity of their response, so imagine my surprise when
yesterday afternoon I got a call from the arborists manager here at the University..AND...

This morning the groundskeepers scored me a PERFECT stick for a caber. It's ash (I'm sick of eucalyptus cabers), they say they have to thin out the ash in a particular area on the grounds to make room for some of the native trees. The stick is not perfectly straight, but it's close. It's 15' 10"..PERFECT, and probably weighs, wet, about 80 pounds. Spot on. I will probably be able to turn this one, but not ten times in a row, so it's a good training caber for me. This past season I was stuck, all our cabers were either way too little or way too big. This one has a nice taper to a good handle at the little end. YAY...and it was *Free*.

Not only that, but I told him the rough size I needed for a womens caber and he's gonna keep an eye out for me.


Now I have to get it home, bark it (that's a project, ARF!!!) and get a mess of linseed oil on the ends and then paint it so it won't dry out and lose 1/3rd of its weight.