A retirement hobby has grown into a small business on the banks of the Ohio River in Higginsport. Jim Kauffman has been collecting driftwood and creating a line of lamps, tables, sculptures and other creative objects. Each one is unique in shape, color and size. Kauffman says, “Mother Nature is truly the artist. Finding, cutting and finishing the wood is the man-made part of the process.“ The wood ranges in a variety of colors including red, orange, yellow to gray and even black.

Some of the most unusual pieces of Kauffman's art contain rocks, which the root systems have grown around and picked up when the trees break loose. Kauffman's unique pieces have been sold to individuals from California to New York.

Using a row boat to search the shallow waters of the Ohio River, Kauffman begins a battle of stepping through deep mud, slime, snakes, bugs and crawdads. “That's where the good stuff is,” says Kauffman.

Of special interest to Kauffman is finding root systems, which have been at the bottom of the Ohio River in shallow areas since the completion of the Mehldahl Dam, some 30 years ago. Some of the trees cut were 60 to 70 years old at the time, bringing their age to approximately 100 years old. All of the wood collected is then dried, sandblasted and finished. The Ohio River is full of treasures in driftwood; no two pieces are alike.