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I thought the answer to the question of how the aliens got here was "row v. wade" ?

It really is just science...

As common musical instrument-focused sawyer's knowledge holds, felling near the full moon assures that the tree's dryad stands the highest chance possible of being trapped within as the trunk is severed from root. As the dryad is present from the very first moment of germination, entry and exit from her host tree is at that spiritually rooted site from just above the common height of the felling cut (see the attached by Evelyn De Morgan illustrating this phenomenon). As a dryad receives most of her nourishment from the salubrious effects of moonlight falling on the upper branches and leaves of the host tree, felling under a full moon or shortly thereafter ensures the highest likelihood that the hopefully sated creature will not be successful in exiting the host until it is too late to effect an escape. This ensures the dryad's prolonged, piteous death shrieks act to condition the timber in the pitches associated with dryad speech and song (~200 - 450 Hz).

Obviously, the hearing protection worn by sawyers in the practice of their trade serves a dual purpose in protecting them both from the mundane noise associated with modern forestry equipment, as well as the near deafening shrieks of the trapped and dying wood spirit entombed in the felled tree. We as luthiers hear the merest echo of those death cries as we work that timber, but know that as time passes, the residual, often inharmonious essence of the dryad will fade from her murdered tree, leaving just the beneficial, sonic enrichments as a lasting legacy of the wood spirit's final moments.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Woody, that's the best explanation I've heard so far.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Oh, well, in that case, I stand corrected. ;-)

So when we pass along the Moon spruce with the entombed wood spirits corpse to our children, they can have that much coveted "heir dryad lumber"....

Like Pat Foster, I too have a fair number of Lutz tops with funny names, only I paid a fair bit for mine. Regardless of Mario's image, they are some of the best tops I have. Ditto for Shane's tops and bracewood. I haven't yet tried Moon Spruce.

Well, a lumberjack, in the hills of Virginia, thought it was a lot simpler than that. He was convinced that moon spruce meant that he had to moon the tree, just before he cut it down. He is in the hospital, recovering from urushiol temeritas in fissur.