By Margaret Magnus

After the initial shock of Baba’s Tree being struck by fire for a second time – the first time in 1985 and now again in 2017 – the community expressed its desire – through social media, email and personal contact – to save the wood from Baba’s Tree. The board of directors agreed.

Within two months of the December 4, 2017, Thomas Fire, a team of professionals and volunteers was at Meher Mount for three and a half days harvesting and salvaging the burned and fallen wood from Baba’s Tree. The immediate goal was to mill, prepare and store the wood before the winter rains.

Meher Baba’s Unseen Hand Guides the Process

This entire process demonstrated how blessed Meher Mount is to have just the right people when they are needed and how Avatar Meher Baba’s unseen hand continually guides the events and people associated with Meher Mount.

Days after the fire, board president Sam Ervin contacted Ken Pellman, an experienced wood worker who managed his family’s business – a lumberyard – for many years. His experience, judgement and knowledge in this area were valuable in determining how to proceed to save the wood from Baba’s Tree.

Ken outlined the considerations and process in saving, storing and using the wood. He then directed Margaret and Sam to craftsman Harold Greene of Harold Greene Fine Furnishings based in San Pedro, CA.

Harold was interested in being part of the project. He suggested working with certified arborist and miller Peter Harnisch of Harnisch Tree Care. The team arrived on Monday, February 5, 2018 to begin the process.

While watching Harold and Peter work together for three-and-one-half days, it became apparent that their mutual respect, experience in communicating with each other, and their expertise was exactly the right team for Baba’s Tree.

They had the knowledge Meher Mount needed to guide the process. It was more than a job to them. They approached the task of milling the wood with love, care and veneration. Meher Baba had sent the right people for the task.

Baba’s Tree: Considerations Before Milling the Wood

Before milling, Ken recommended that Meher Mount have a general idea of the various ways in which the wood would be used.

Knowing the range of items to be crafted, their sizes, and their uses would help to direct how the wood would be cut.

“Each cut produces a different type of wood pattern,” he noted. “It helps to know how you are going to use the wood before milling it so you choose the appropriate cut.”

The options became endless. For smaller pieces of wood, the idea list included everything from small paperweights, to vases, to picture frames, to boxes with lids, to jewelry and walking sticks.

For larger pieces of wood, the list included a replica of the chair Meher Baba sat in during His 1956 visit, a memorial for Meher Mount co-founder Agnes Baron, outdoor benches, chairs, bookcases and so on.

These considerations helped Harold Greene guide the milling process.

Baba’s Tree: Taking Inventory

As a first step in harvesting the wood from Baba’s Tree, artisan Harold Greene advised Meher Mount on the need to tag and catalog the wood. The tagging objectives were to identify what the wood looked like before milling, to know approximately where it came from on Baba’s Tree, and to have a complete inventory of all the milled pieces.

On the morning of February 5, 2018, Harold arrived with the tags and began attaching them to segments of Baba’s Tree. He instructed Margaret Magnus to begin photographing the tagged pieces before the team cut any portion of the tree. These tags formed the basis for cataloging the harvested wood for Baba’s Tree.

The sheer volume of wood was astounding – most of the wood was properly tagged, but it soon became difficult to show exactly where the wood was originally located on Baba’s Tree.

Once the limbs and branches were milled into planks, Margaret logged those pieces on the inventory sheets Harold had provided. Each log was given an identification number, such as 4C.

Then the diameter and length of the log were measured, the number of planks from that log identified, and the thickness of each plank noted.

Thus, the inventory sheet for Log 4C indicates that its diameter ranges from 11 inches to 14 inches, the length is 41 inches, and there is a total of eight planks that are each one-and-a-half-inches thick.

This inventory is a valuable record going forward and helps to guide which pieces of wood to use for what.

Baba’s Tree: Clearing the Branches First

When the Thomas Fire struck Baba’s Tree, most of the crown of the tree separated and toppled to the ground in the high winds.

The fallen part of Baba's Tree included very large limbs, medium-sized branches, small branches, and a huge volume of twigs.

Before the actual milling could begin, the team needed to clear away the smaller branches and twigs to reach the large limbs and medium-sized branches.

One of the major tasks of the first two days of harvesting was clearing away these branches and twigs to get to the larger logs and branches to mill them for wood.

Baba’s Tree: Milling the Wood

To mill the wood, Peter brought two different types of portable saw mills and all the milling was done on site at Meher Mount.

The milling process was considered, slow and steady – evaluating each limb and branch, its shape, its diameter, and ultimately selecting the appropriate number and depth of planks.

Working with Peter, Harold carefully identified how each major limb would be milled. The number of planks with width calculated before the sawing even began.

In the first two-and-a-half days, February 5-7, 2018, most of the wood was milled.

However, some of the very large limbs required a different type of mill, and the team returned later on February 13, 2018 to finish the milling process, which included the wood for three outdoor benches from Baba's Tree. 

In addition to the milled larger pieces, Meher Mount kept a number of smaller branches.

The total volume of salvaged wood partially fills a cargo container. Harold later estimated that there could be 1,000 board feet of lumber milled from Baba's Tree. 

Baba’s Tree: Storage of the Milled Wood

Prior to milling the wood, the Meher Mount team identified the perfect outdoor storage area for the wood while it cured and dried. Partway down the Well Road, there was a concrete pad that had been the foundation of a barn/shed at Meher Mount before the shed was destroyed in the 1985 New Life Fire.

The 2017 Thomas Fire burned all the grass around the pad, but there was general debris in the area. Volunteers for the January 28, 2018, fire clean-up work day (“Thomas Fire No Match for Meher Baba and His Lovers”) cleared the area around the concrete pad in anticipation of storing Baba’s Tree wood there.

Later, a second pad was created from discarded concrete blocks. The entire storage area was later fenced with a locked gate so that the wood would remain undisturbed.

Over time, it was determined that even covered with a tarp, there needed to be better protection for the wood.  An a-frame covered in canvas was built by Jim Whedon in 2019.  Then in the summer of 2020, a used cargo container was brought on site to store the milled wood.  The irregular logs and pieces remained the a-frame.

Related Stories

• Fire Strikes Baba's Tree - Twice

• Fire Is a Creative Force - Three Benches from Baba's Tree

• Baba's Tree - Gathering the Ash