The stumps collected range from pinion cut in the last decade, to junipers cut with an axe before the era of chainsaws. These are coated in whitewash, which consists of lime, a product of limestone. Whitewash serves to preserve wood from deterioration. To whitewash is also meant to obscure an underlying dirty truth. To be whitewashed could also refer to assimilation to a dominant white culture, that in the colonial push westward both land and culture were viewed as resources to be conquered and "civilized". Whitewash in all of its contexts applies in this instance. Removed from the earth, the whitewashed stumps take on a skeletal and ghostly appearance.