50,000 year old wood!

It's called Kauri wood, and it is from the bogs of New Zealand.

I had a chance to talk with Minnesota writer Spike Carlsen about his new book "A Splintered History of Wood- Belt Sander Races, Blind Woodworkers & Baseball Bats". He covers just about everything you'd need to know about wood - from baseball bats, guitars, chainsaw carvers and the Kauri wood of New Zealand.

The Ashland, Wisconsin company Ancientwood harvests the wood and sells it for about $35 a board. As Spike put it, there's an almost hologram look to the wood...

Spike Carlsen will be at the Village Bookstore in Grand Rapids this Sunday, September 7th from 12-noon. He'll have a little show-n-tell that will include the Kauri wood as well as one of his most prized wooden pieces, a 30lb chunk of maple that is whittled down to a 7 oz cowboy hat.

For every copy of "A Splintered History of Wood" by Spike Carlsen, a tree will be planted in Tanzania.

Do you have a favorite kind of wood? The desks at KAXE (made by Timberdoodle Woodworks out of Bovey, MN) are made of a wood called lyptus. It's grown quickly and sustainably in the rainforest and is beautiful!