Through and through

Any domain of knowledge is a treasure trove of jargon. When that knowledge relates to a traditional craft, it becomes a vocabulary deeply rooted in working with the land—a language passed down orally, generation to generation, long before it was ever written.

Learning these word and phrases, even in a small way, reconnects us to a language of observation, design, and craft that originates from the bioregions we inhabit.

I am lapping up this language in Ben Law’s book on Woodland Craft, and discovering phrases that I take for granted. 

Like ‘through and through’, which I took to loosely mean homogeneity. But in woodland craft it describes the process of sawing timber down the length of the log rather than across it. What it produces is planks of timber with border of bark on either side. The bark can be taken off, or left on to create waney edge boards, like we have used around Hazel Hill Wood.

And then I read that sawing ‘through and through’ is necessary for creating ‘bastard shakes’. Now I am intrigued.