Poor image quality, I need to go take some better pictures of these. Anyway...
These are two very old chairs. If you look closely, they are held together with pegs and not metal nails. No metal at all in these chairs. I got them without bottoms and put the bottoms in them. I sit in them at my fly-tying table now. If you'll notice, they are very low to the ground. I guess that's partly because people 100 years ago were shorter, and part of it is the wear of being pulled across the floor and ground for decades.
You can only do it in April or May in this part of the country, while the sap is rising. First I went out into the woods and cut down a poplar tree, about 7" or so in diameter. Then you drag it up and cut off the limbs. Then shave off the outermost, thin layer of bark. That gets you to an inner layer of bark, which you can cut off in very long strips. Cut the strips off, and then weave them into a chair bottom. What you don't use that day, I did one before lunch and one after lunch. What is left over from the tree can be soaked in water and used the next day.
(if I hadn'ted drank a half bottle of Maker's Mark, I wouldn't be posting these)
