Moving from Woodlot to Woodshop

As the 2012 Woodworking Certificate Program enters its third week, students are honing in from forests to fine woodworking. The 11-week intensive course began with sawyer Nick Zandstra, who took students out into the woods on Yestermorrow's campus to analyze trees and the wood they produce, and eventually demonstrate felling and small-scale milling practices.

The class prepares to haul freshly-cut yellow birch logs back to the center of campus.

And those same yellow birch logs, after a pass through Nick's Wood Mizer mill.

From here, students move into the woodshop to learn the tactile essence of this green wood by shaping it into ladderback chairs.

Green wood being shaped into the leg of a ladderback chair.

And from there, they'll move on to cabinetry and boxmaking and other fine woodworking sections of the Woodworking Certificate--always sensing the journey their materials have made from forest to furniture. This deeply interdisciplinary learning environment, where students learn to connect broad forest ecology with detailed boxmaking, constitutes Yestermorrow's core.