One chilly morning back in January, Daniel and I were on our morning walk and passed by a pile of branches that were long, straight, sturdy, and brown. I did a double-take and went back to take a closer look, and saw where the branches were coming from: a strange stub of a tree that looked like this:
Dormant tree, looking out of place
I took a 3” sample stick and steamed it at home. The outer layer peeled right off, just like dak.
Excitedly, I went back a couple hours later and rang the doorbell of the duplex, outside of which sat two neat piles. There were four trees in the yard which I suspected were some type of mulberry. All four had large knobby stubs out of which I imagined lots of branches shooting out, maybe like this.
Huge pile of mystery mulberry branches on the side of the road
Nobody answered the door, so Daniel and I went home and came back with work gloves and a cleared out Prius trunk lined with tarp. We worked quickly, carefully selecting branches that were straight, without knots, at least ½” in diameter, and roughly the same length. After we were done gathering, both piles looked like they were barely touched.
Our modest haul
Over the next week, I cut down the mulberry branches using a saw and giant loppers. It was laborious and I found myself wishing I had a chainsaw or at least a work table for sawing. Or just a bigger steaming apparatus. I cut down a bunch and soaked them in water, then steamed them in a pot with another pot as a lid.
After stripping all of the branches, I tied bunches of stripped mulberry and hung them to dry. I worked in batches.
One afternoon, I cut down more branches while the kids played outside. They “helped” me by handing me sticks to cut, then carrying cut sticks to the area by the hose. I did an initial cut with the saw, and then finished off the cuts with the loppers (i don’t know what they are called, but they are like gigantic scissors). I didn’t get to soak these very long, and I bundled them and put them in the steamer. I checked two hours later, they were still not ready to peel. We all went out to dinner to celebrate a friend’s birthday; when we came back it was already dark out but I remembered the steaming sticks, so Winnie and I went out back and stripped them together. I showed her how the outer bark shrinks down by ⅛” on one end, which indicates that they are ready to strip. The sticks and strips were nice and warm, which was a relief since it was chilly and windy outside. I left the stripped mulberry in a vat in a pile. The next morning I tied them in bundles and hung them to dry, as they were still slightly damp. The kids had so much fun playing with the stick cores like giant Lincoln logs.
Once they were all dry, I weighed and stored them for several months. I had gathered, stripped, and dried over 4lb of bark. It wasn’t until last month that I finally got to scraping the outer layer off, leaving the bast. I had some friends over to help me plant a native garden in our backyard, and they eagerly helped with scraping.
Scraping outer bark off bast fiber; you can’t tell from this photo but trust me they are having a blast
I’m very curious to see wonder what kind of paper this will make; it looks just like dak or kozo
My mom came over to help too, and she was unsurprisingly very good at scraping
Now whenever we pass by the trees on our family walk, Jinwoo (6 years old) likes to recount the story of how I jumped around and waved my arms excitedly when I realized these trees could be used to make paper. Stay tuned.