The Weekend Country Girl: Driftwood

Doesn't this look like a claw in this picture?

Last summer in our part of Texas there was a drought. The lack of rain in the whole region caused the lake level to drop lower than it had been in years. We got to see the lake bottom like we had never seen it. It go to the point that we could walk out the boat launch and around a point that we normally boat by. On one of those long lake bottom walks I discovered a large piece of wood half buried in the sand. We dug the wood out and it was beautiful. This log had to have been already laying on the ground when the lake filled in 1967. It was clear that the wood had been under water for years and years. It was covered in worm holes, completely black from lack of oxygen, and beautifully preserved. Oh, did I mention it was HEAVY? It wasn't so bad to carry for a little while, but we were a good mile from the truck. Hubby and I carried it back to the truck and put it in the garage.

When it dried it was obvious that it needed to be cleaned up. Our friend Larry has a power washer and he volunteered to clean it one day when I was over so I could show him what I wanted done. The log was moved to their lake house garage. One thing led to another and time got away from us. Now that their lake house is being sold they needed to give us back the log, but Larry did loan us the power washer too.

I have a fear of power tools but I LOVED the power washer.

I power washed the entire thing three times, allowing it to dry between washing so that I could see what needed to be cleaned.

The next step was to polycyrlic the entire thing. I am one of those people who think you should try to do things on your own but if you have never used poly this is not the place to start. I almost ruined the piece and I have used it many times. It was almost impossible to see runs or drips and poly leaves foamy places if not wiped down.