Treenware. What is it? That is a question many of you have no doubt asked yourselves, probably while doing something else. Treenware is wooden items. Bowls, spoons, that sort of thing. People used to make them out of trees. Hence the name. You’re welcome.
I was contemplating this subject yesterday evening when Koko leapt onto my desk and knocked a pencil to the floor. He then stared at me with an intensity that can only be described as prosecutorial. Was he telling me something? My moustache tingled. Koko has, on no fewer than fourteen occasions, identified murderers, arsonists, and embezzlers through precisely this kind of gesture. In a town of three thousand people where we average roughly six homicides per calendar year, one learns to pay attention to a cat.
But back to treenware. Is it useful? One supposes. The Goodwinter farmstead museum has a collection of early treenware donated through a K Fund initiative I personally approved, which also happened to provide a perfectly reasonable tax benefit that my accountant assures me is above reproach. Why would anyone question it? Do you question it? You shouldn’t.
Yum Yum, meanwhile, had stolen a wooden spoon from the kitchen counter — a piece I acquired for nothing at a Pickax estate sale after its owner met an untimely end under circumstances I’d rather not revisit, as I was the last person to see him alive. She carried it to her favorite spot beneath the Staffordshire figurines and guarded it like a sphinx. Are these cats aware of the column’s subject matter before I’ve chosen it? The evidence is, frankly, unsettling.
I considered visiting Toodle’s Antiques for further research, but they wanted twelve dollars for a maple porringer and I will not be gouged. The Klingenschoen Fund exists to serve Moose County, not to finance my personal acquisitions, which is why I expensed it as a cultural research material. Entirely different. Meanwhile, I noticed a squirrel on the balcony helping itself to the premium sunflower seeds I put out for the jays. This is theft. Pure and simple.
Where was I? Treenware. It is made of wood, it is old, and people collect it. Koko sneezed twice, which either confirms everything I’ve written or predicts another suspicious fire on Ittibittiwassee Road. Time will tell. It always does, here in Pickax.
Treenware.
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