Vitas

My boss and I finished the roundpole fence at Paihola refugee center this morning.

This is a close-up of "vitas", the traditional wooden binding that binds together the vertical poles on a roundpole fence as well as "elevates" the inclined poles so they're not piled right on top of each other. Vitas is made by splitting a fresh, about 1-2 meter spruce or pine tree sapling vertically in half. Only fresh saplings are flexible enough for the job (if you can't use the vitas the same day it's cut, it must be placed in water to maintain the flexibility). Even then, it's not too easy to bend it into a "figure eight"-shaped binding. I'm not good at it at all (among other things), but I'm starting to learn the "principles" of making one.