Medina Mesquite
Seven species of Mesquite cover some 54 million acres of Texas, and parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Mexico. While most people equate mesquite with only the barbecue grill, bands of woodworkers promote the wood as furniture-class stock. Their efforts have lifted the wood's reputation out of its native land.
Mesquite wood can vary in color from dark brown with wavy, blackish lines to camel tan. Whatever its color, the grain is straight to wavy, medium to coarse in texture, and tightly interlocked. Some of the most spectacular figures I have ever seen in wood, occur in Mesquite
.A good friend of mine told me that he “knew a guy” that was going to bulldoze and burn 6 good-sized mesquite trees in a pasture out in Medina County, Texas just southwest of San Antonio. He told the man that he knew someone who might remove the trees for the wood and save him the bulldozing fee and the hassle of burning it all. That “someone” was me and obviously, I got all 6 trees, milled the wood, dried it, and now put it to good use. Interestingly enough, when milling one of those trees, we cut a Civil War-era musket ball in half and destroyed a saw blade when we cut into a Comanche spearhead in another. I found out that Comanches would often "store" such things in the crook of a tree for later use. In this case, the Comanche obviously never returned for the spearhead and the tree grew around it. I was glad to have found it but can't say the same for the sawmill blade.
