So when a 71-foot cherry tree was blown over in his backyard in the middle of June, he couldn’t stand to see the wood go to waste.
He called five logging companies, from the area and in Michigan, but couldn’t find any takers.
Then came an idea that was a little far-fetched, but ended up working: He brought a master chain saw carver in from Michigan to create an Egyptian cat out of the bottom 8 feet of the tree.
He knew who he wanted to carve it — Sean Bell, from northern Michigan.
Mitchell was familiar with Bell’s work. Mitchell goes to a family reunion every year in Michigan near Houghton Lake, and he’s stopped at Burning Oak Country Club on the trips. It was there he noticed many wood carvings. He asked who had done them, and was able to track Bell down.
“I knew that he did excellent work,” Mitchell said. “There’s a lot of people that do carving, but you don’t know whether they know what they’re doing.
“So the question was how do I talk somebody to come 450 miles to do a carving?”
It turned out not to be too difficult. Bell, whose main trade is making signs, has been carving wood and stone for 11 years as a serious hobby.
But since there aren’t a lot of cherry trees in northern Michigan, Bell had never carved something this large out of cherry wood.
To seal the deal, Mitchell offered to pay for a family vacation to Kings Island for Bell, his wife and three children, ages 10, 14 and 17, during their four-day visit to southwest Ohio.
“It was exciting because I’m always looking for unique ideas,” Bell said. “I always like to take people’s thoughts and turn them into something.”
Mitchell got the idea for the cat carvings when thinking back to a vacation he and his wife, Martha, a retired computer engineer, took to Egypt about four years ago.
“We noticed all these Egyptian cat statues everywhere,” said Mitchell, who has had nine cats through 40-plus years of marriage.
Bell and his family arrived July 21, right during the heat wave. But it didn’t slow down the carver, who used three specially designed chain saws to cut from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., getting the job done in one day.
Bell drew a crowd.
Neighbors who helped cut up the tree and move the log to a concrete platform also came out to watch the carving, along with Mitchell’s four grandchildren, ages 2-12. All were impressed with the big cat, Mitchell said.
“My neighbors are very tolerant of me. It’s always, ‘What the heck is Mitchell doing this day?’ ” he added.
What Mitchell is doing now is adding hieroglyphics to the base of the sculpture with the names of his nine cats. He’s done two so far and isn’t a novice at woodwork, either, having run a miniature furniture side business with a neighbor for 10 years.
It’s been a lot of work, but as Mitchell said, “How many people have a carving in their backyard?”
About the Author