Volunteers sought to help stack Perkins House wood piles

Chopped trees have left wood pieces on the Perkins House lawn. House coordinator Theresa Dale is looking for help today and tomorrow to move and stack the wood.

Two trees had to come down at the Perkins House last November, and now the house coordinator is looking for help to move the tree pieces and stack them into wood piles.

Theresa Dale of Thornton, coordinator for the Perkins House, said the wood from the trees has been lying in the Perkins House front yard since the trees were cut down last November. At that time, the trees were cut into pieces and left on the yard until the time when weather would allow for the job to be finished.

“Now I’m looking for good backs and free hands,” Dale said.

Dale said the work involved will be putting the wood in a splitter and stacking the wood at the house. She added that once the wood is seasoned, which takes about a year from the time the trees were chopped, it will be available for purchase and possibly to low-income families.

“It won’t be burnable until it’s dried and seasoned, but we are hoping to make some of it available to low-income families and also sell it for $100 a cord,” she said.

Cords will be 4 x 4 x 8, and the decision on making some of the wood available to low-income families will be up to the board, Dale said. She added that she is not sure how many cords the trees will make.

The two trees that came down on Nov. 4 last year, 100-plus-year-old firs, were taken down because of concerns that arose due to the age and rotting noted.

“We were just ready for something to happen with the wind to take them,” Dale said.

Thirteen days after the trees came down, the historic windstorm ripped through Whitman County Nov. 17 and other parts of eastern Washington, downing several trees in the county and knocking out power to more than 12,000 Whitman County Avista customers and 554 Inland Power county customers.

“One of those stood right next to the main breaker,” Dale said. “They were taken down just in time.”

One of the downed trees in Colfax from that storm actually fell just down the street from the Perkins House and totaled a backyard shop at the Tony and Linda Line residence. Multiple trees were downed in that area.

Dale also said another tree at the property has been marked to come down. Currently, an orange stripe is painted on the tree to indicate that it will soon be cut. That tree, a black walnut, is “dying from the inside,” Dale said. Years ago, she said, somebody poured a concrete post into the tree.

“They wanted to make it stronger,” she said. “And now the tree is closing around it.”

Dale said she had hope of saving this tree.

“I still had hope for that, but I haven’t seen any buds on it,” she said. “Black walnuts aren’t supposed to be watered that much, and this one has just been watered, watered, watered.”

As new trees are planted at the house, Dale said the locations will be evaluated based on where the sprinkler system hits, as that is what caused the black walnut to be over watered.

“We’re not trying to make it look bad, but we also have to make some room for new trees,” she said.

The date for taking down that tree has not yet been set.

Dale added that the cords which will be sold after the wood is piled will raise funds for the house.

“If we can sell them to help make a profit for the house, that would be great,” she said.

Dale said this would be how Mr. Perkins would have gone about it as well, noting the “philantrophist he was.”

“He would want us to do something like that,” she said.

To volunteer to help move wood today and Friday, contact Dale at the Perkins House or via email. She said a call or email would be good so she knows who to expect at the house those days. She also said she will provide refreshments for volunteers.

“We may not get it all done, but all people have to do is call me,” she said.

Dale can be reached at 509-397-2555 or [email protected].