Our region is known as the "Land Between" which refers to our geographic niche of being a unique place where the Canadian Shield to the north and the St. Lawrence-Carolinian Forests to the south, meet and mingle. This marriage of ecological zones gives us a rich abundance of wildlife and a diversity of plants, namely beautiful trees! Our predominant and largest trees are white pines, sugar maples and red oaks. We also have large stands of cedar and a lot of ash, birches, black cherry and lindens which the bees love! We have also cultivated more southerly trees such as black walnuts and kentucky coffee trees.
Here at Thistlecroft, we mill our own wood for custom jobs and to satisfy our own building and creative needs. We do our best not to waste materials which has led to some interesting and innovative uses of off-cuts and wood by-products. For example, we have been experimenting with using the 'slabs' (the rounded off-cuts of squaring a log during the milling process) as an in-fill/siding material. You can see an example of this at our Farm Boutique.
Our wood working focus so far has been more practical (namely milling and building farm related items) but we are transitioning into furniture and home products that reflect our interests and what our land provides us. Some of these products include cooking utensils, benches, and harvest tables.
