Petit rien

[Jonzjob]

We have been invited to an open house party from an English couple that have just moved into our village and I was wondering what to give them as a 'Petit rien' as the French call it. A 'little nothing or small present. A charming idea! I have some Russian olive from a small tree that expired in the garden and was quite dry so I decided to make a small, single flower, vase from a piece of it. It's almost 4" high and I cheated by using a 3/4" forstner bit to take the middle out. It told me that it wanted a captive ring as I was turning it so out came my trusty home made captive ring tool too. Finished with a Liberon wax stick and Danish oil in the hole.

Russian olive has a lovely grain and colouring. I didn't know it existed until we moved here. It also has fearsome thorns and no olives too!

P.S. My captive ring tool was ground from an old 1 1/4" chisel and has given me good service for years now!

 

[laird]

That's nice. Personally not convinced about the captive ring, but if the wood wanted it ................
Never heard of/seen the wood.

 

[Jenx]

That looks a lovely wood... never heard of it before either, but it looks wonderful ! 8)

 

[Bodrighy]

It is lovely wood. Heard of it but not seen it before. Little things like that can mean a lot when you move somwhere new.

Pete

 

[Jonzjob]

I've just googled the wood for the first time and our Transatlantic cousins definately don't like it. In fact the only sites I found were on about how to get rid of it! The way this one of ours throws out succers and appears several yards away in the drive shows just why! We haven't had any fruite on it yet.

Lovely wood and quite hard. I'm glad that I have some more of it..

Thank you for the comments!

 

[Paul.J]

Looks very nice and should be a nice little present
Looks like Laburnum.

 

[Hans]

I found Elaeagnus angustifolia for the translation of 'olivier russe'.

Although elsewhere Sweet osmanthus, (Osmanthus fragrans) is suggested.

Hans