Pecan - Benbrook Lake

The good thing about working out of my garage is that my neighbors know to alert me when there is a downed tree.

My neighbor, Mike, pulled up on his bicycle one Saturday morning and started telling me about this large Pecan limb that had fallen out by Benbrook Lake on Pearl Ranch road between Hwy 377 and the lake. His regular rides take him south through the roads along the lake, and then he turns around at Hwy. 377. I don’t ride that last segment where this tree was very often, but I knew that there were some sizeable trees along that road.

I drove by later that day and saw the huge limb he spotted - the picture here of where it broke off does not do it justice. It had broken off from the trunk of the tree, but did not have any internal signs of weakness on the branch that would indicate it deteriorated to the point that it fell off naturally. We had a storm roll through a few days before, so it could have fallen due to a lightning strike or winds that just proved too much. Nothing else in the area was down, so feel free to come up with your own story. If a tree falls in the forest…

While cutting it into long slabs with my chainsaw mill, a resident in the area drove up and was disappointed I beat him to the punch with the limb. Seeing that it was about 12” in diameter and had about 12’ of usable wood, I gladly slabbed up a portion for him. He also took some end pieces so he could use them on his lathe and turn them into bowls or other items.

My neighbor ultimately used a portion of this tree for a backyard bench and I’ve been able to create several end tables, coffee tables, and other items out of it. This might be the hardest, densest tree I’ve worked with so far.