Turning Bois D'arc

 Turning Bois D’Arc

By Bobby Neal Winters

My people call it Bois D’Arc.  Folks around here tend to call it Hedge.  There are some refined educated folks who call it Osage Orange, and they are welcome to do so.  

It is a free country.

But my people call it Bois D’Arc and pronounce it bow dark.  That is an example of a genuine folk etymology which is to say that knowing what something is influences the way you pronounce it.  You see, my people know that Indians (Native Americans, Indigenous people; pick one that makes you happy and push on) made bows from the wonderful wood of this tree.  

The French knew it too.  That’s why they called it bois d’arc.  But the bois is pronounced bwah and means “wood” and the d’arc means “of the bow.”  So it all makes sense and the folk who I call my people just don’t want anyone to forget that connection.  

It’s about history; it’s about reality.

I got a piece of bois d’arc from my brother some time back.  I want to say a year ago Thanksgiving. It might’ve been longer than that, but if so not too much.

I used some of it to make some woodworking mallets, but I still had some left.  I’d cut it from one of my brother’s trees. It’s about 3 or 4 inches through and it still has the bark on it.  

The Bois D’Arc is not a pretty tree.  Indeed, one might say without too much fear of contradiction that it’s ugly.  It’s got thorns on its limbs.  

It bears a fruit that not many animals find attractive, no matter how hungry they might be. The internet tells me that only the seeds are really edible and that the latex that permeates the fruit can irritate your skin.

But it is tough.  

It will grow in poor soil, in inhospitable places.

It is defiant. 

Yesterday, I took a piece of what my brother gave me and turned it on the lathe.

It is hard.

Very hard.

I had my doubts that I would be able to do much with it until I got past the bark, past the dry part of the wood.  When I got down to the wet part, the part that was still “green,” it turned easier.

I called it green, of course, just because it hadn’t dried out yet.  The wood beneath the bark was actually yellow, a beautiful, beautiful yellow.

I am just starting with the lathe, so I don’t know how to make much.  So far what I’ve done is make squarish objects into cylinders. Those things and a lot of saw dust.

But I’d seen a Russian guy on Youtube making whistles.

And I thought, “Hmm, whistles.”

That’s what grandpas do.

I made a couple from other wood: one from cedar and one from pine.

I thought to make one from bois d’arc.  The wood of my people.  The wood that exemplifies my people.

I turned it between centers to knock the bark off and to make it round.  I then stuck one end in a chuck while still having the other end held secure.  

I began taking off wood to take it down to the size of a whistle.

The yellow just got deeper and more beautiful.  But it’s still as hard as iron inside.

I was able to drill a hole down the axis without too much trouble, but cutting a wedge from the side with a chisel to make the whistle was just about as much as I could do.

With all the bark removed, it is revealed to be beautiful on the inside, but it’s still hard, still unrelenting, still something you don’t really want to mess with if you don’t have to.

The wood of my people.  

It is right.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.