This unique lumber has been on a long journey that spanned decades and thousands of miles. The text and historical photos below document ten key steps along the journey.
Step 1: Buying the Damaged Land
While living in Costa Rica as grad students in the 1990's, we bought a degraded cattle property. We vowed to bring the damaged land back to life. We would restore half into a rain forest nature reserve. The other half would become a sustainable tree farm.
Step 2: Planting the Trees
With help from local community members, we planted tree seedlings on the barren land. We timed the planting with the annual "veranillo" -- a two-week dry spell that occurs during the six-month rainy season. This made it dry enough for us to work, followed by rains that would water the fragile seedlings for us.
Step 3: Managing the Trees
We lovingly cared for the baby tree seedlings. We weeded, pruned and thinned them. Year after year, we protected the young trees from diseases, insects, wildfires, illegal loggers and other things that could kill them.
Step 4: Preparing for Harvest
Shortly before harvest, we hired a forest engineer (the guy in the photo) to assess the stand and take detailed measurements. The forest engineer submitted paperwork to Ministry of Forestry. The ministry gave us written permission to harvest the trees.
Step 5: Harvesting The Trees
We worked with three teams of oxen during harvest, rather than with heavy machinery that damages the land. One log at a time, these gentle giants dragged 500 trees out to the main road. The two oxen in the photo are named Rojo and Hosco.
Step 6: Hauling Logs to the Sawmill
After oxen dragged logs to the road, we hauled them out of the mountains down a steep dirt road. Once in the lowlands, we loaded the logs onto a truck. The driver made six trips to the closest sawmill. We had to show paperwork at police checkpoints along the way. The police needed to confirm these were legally harvested logs.
Step 7: Milling Logs into Lumber
Near the community of Cobano on the southern Nicoya Peninsula, Gabriel Hernandez and his wonderful crew at the FSC-Certified 'TEAK-O' sawmill milled our logs into boards. Next, staff carefully "stickered" (stacked) the boards in a way that allowed air flow and prevented warping (see photo). Last, they kiln-dried the lumber over the course of many days.
Step 8: Shipping to the U.S.
We loaded the kiln-dried lumber into two shipping containers. A giant crane at the port of Caldera lifted both containers onto a Korean ship called the NYK Maria (show in the photo). The NYK Maria dropped the containers off at Long Beach, California. There, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials took both containers to their warehouse and removed all 20,000 boards to check for illegal drugs. Finding none, they reloaded the containers and sent them on their way (and sent us a big bill).
Step 9: Transporting to our House
After clearing customs, we loaded the shipping containers onto two semi tractor trailers. The 18-wheelers drove six hours north to our house along the Monterey Bay. There we unloaded the 28 pallets with the help of friends and a rented 'rough terrain' forklift. The forklift had a telescopic boom that reached deep inside each semi. The pallets weigh one ton each, on average.
Step 10: Sharing the Lumber
We have enjoyed sharing boards with local friends and family, as well as strangers who find us through a personal connection.
Now It's Your Turn!
Do you or someone you know appreciate high-quality wood?
Would you like to write the final chapter of this wonderful story by creating something special?