I’m not sure why, but for some strange reason, I’m sitting here, totally stumped, grabbing for a topic that could work for today’s post. That’s disturbing, because this rarely happens to me. Inspiration normally hits like a bolt of lightning and I start to write.

But, not today.

And, that’s fine. Because the bolt of lightning that hit me deals with a part of the tree we don’t normally think about. The stump.

I mean tree stumps get no respect. They are that umbilical stub the tree maintains to the ground. They stay behind, witness to the tree that once grew there.

If we remove a tree from our yard, we might leave the stump there, or hire someone to grind the stump out of the ground.  We might pour a chemical on the stump to make it rot faster, or we can hook it to a truck and yank it out of the ground.

Sure, we talk a lot about stumps. Someone can be as dumb as one. Politicians deliver stump speeches. In the game of cricket, the stump is the set of stakes that form ‘home base’ that the batter defends.

We might not think that these things are important to woodworking, but you’d be wrong. In the world of veneers, prized logs are harvested and nothing is allowed to go to waste. That includes the wild grains found at the stumps of these trees.

Another thing I have seen done with stumps (or taller trunks that are still attached to the stumps) are some tremendous carvings. When a live oak tree in Largo Central Park in my fair city died, rather than tear the whole thing down and mulch it, the city allowed local wood carver Bob Marek the opportunity to re-imagine the tree, and turn it into a work of art. The sculpture still adorns the main park green, and is a highlight of any visit there.

Another thing that stumps are good for is a game of skill called Stumps. I could try to explain it to you, but you probably want to read the rules here.

So, the next time you see a lowly tree stump, show it a little respect. It did a lot of really hard work, and isn’t totally worthless…