Cedar chopping block

This is a cedar chopping block that Neil's been working on for the last couple of days. He cut it from a stump out in the woods and has been sanding and sanding and oiling and oiling it to perfection. Originally we were going to paint the face of it with chalkboard paint and use it in Breakers to display daily specials but once it was sanded down we couldn't bare to cover up all the beautiful curves and rings. we've decided to keep it as a giant chopping block (although I'm not sure we'll ever bring ourselves to chop on it :)

It really is a whopper and makes quite a statement on my dining table! The photos don't really seem to show it's true size even with my handy pear comparison.

Here's a few pics of Neil finishing it up in the garage. He really loved working on it and I'm trying to persuade him to go into production, with only reclaimed wood of course :)

By our calculations the tree that our beauty of a slab came from was approximately 250 years old!! That means it was a wee sapling back in the year 1762!!! The craziest thing is that at 250 years old it was just a teenager compared to some of the 800 year old giants in this area. I still can't get my head around these utterly amazing trees and can't believe our government isn't doing more to protect the last few pockets of old growth forest that still remain.

We have two baby cedar trees temporarily living in our kitchen that the kids received at the Maritime Kids Day. We're planning on planting them somewhere that we'll always be able to come and visit and I can only hope that these little saplings will still be standing strong in 250 years time.