Welcome to Natural Creations Blog.

My Natural Creations blog is dedicated to the subject of reclaiming and recycling Nature's beautiful wood to form new and unique items for reuse. My main emphasis today is on creating unique home and commercial furnishings and sculptures with sinker/deadhead cypress. What is sinker/deadhead cypress? This is cypress that was originally harvested from swamps in the South during the period of 1850-1910. It is "original growth" wood that is hundreds of years old. Once harvested, the logs were transported to saw mills via rivers. Some logs would sink to the bottom of the rivers and remain there, covered with silt, until reclaimed by local divers over the past 20 years. Once reclaimed from the rivers and bayous the logs would be sold to saw mills for making beams, flooring and paneling. This is where I come in. I salvage the remnants from the milling process to create my items. Once finished, my items are truly a piece of Southern history, showing the life rings of centuries of growth. I hope by blogs will help you to enjoy the beauty of Nature's True Creations.

This deadhead cypress log was recovered from a northern Florida bayou in 2012. It is estimated to be well over 1000 years old. In order to transport this large log to the saw mill, it had to be loaded onto a heavy construction dump truck with a crane. It is so heavy, the original loading attempt onto a flatbed trailer blew all the tires. This beautiful cypress log will be reclaimed by milling it into large slabs for table and desk tops.

The original cypress harvest of the old growth forests occurred from the mid 1880s to the early 1900s in the swamp areas of the deep South. Transportation of the cut timber to saw mills was difficult in those days, so the rivers were the primary "road." Along the way, some sank and are today known as deadhead or sinker cypress. Here is a photo from the 1800s showing the shipping process.

One of the major suppliers of beautiful old growth milled cypress is Bruner Lumber. These photos show their mill and logs recently pulled from the rivers.

One of numerous mill structures. Due to the warm climate, drying of the cut lumber can occur in open roofed enclosures.

Deadhead cypress logs recently reclaimed from the rivers and bayous.

 New "old" logs just delivered from the river divers.

What a beautiful deadhead cypress log. Not me. Often, these larger logs are milled into single slabs that can be used for tables or desks. The colors and grains are fantastic. This log is probably close to 600 years old.

And these are my "helpers." What a crew, except they are much to old for this type of work. 

Welcome to my Natural Creations blog. I hope you will appreciate the beauty of nature and participate in reclaiming her "treasurers."

John "Gabby" Gabrielson

Natural Creations

Miramar Beach, Florida

612-816-5378