Naomi and one of the dogs at the stairs to the second floor. The wood for the structural beams was collected locally from trees killed by pine bark beetles and then shaped and carved by Rick.
Both whale beams come from a single ponderosa pine. The "mama and baby" is smaller and came from the top half, the papa whale is larger and came from the lower half. They were originally just looking for 2 matching trees, with no carvings in mind, but when they saw this one, Naomi argued with Rick that they could cut it in half and do something asymmetrical. She suggested carving something in them, like the whale idea, so it was cut and hauled it back to the house and Rick took it from there.
