Rotting Logs?

[i_am_chris]

Hi, any suggestion on what we can do with old, rotting logs? Some are leftovers from the original clearing for our driveway and land, they are starting to break down and are no value as firewood. Others are just old timber cuts and we want to get them out of sight.

Thanks

[Don_P]

I wonder how much wood gets wasted this way... I probably don't really want to know. And then we go to the big box and buy crap lumber. Not ranting against you in particular but our mentality in general. It kinda burns my tail to see a bonfire of great hardwood logs and then the builders go buy lumber from Estonia. Use them as landscape/garden timbers that will recycle back to the soil (read no tox and more trees will have fallen by the time you need to replace them), trail liners, etc. or call an excavator and dump truck to haul them to the landfill, whoops I feel another rant impending :).

A portable sawmill can make lumber out of logs on site that can be trim, siding, cabinets, etc, and the wood has a neat personal story. Our trim and cabinets came from the house site. I'm working on a TF shop using white pines from our property and a fellow nearby that was doing some clearing and gave them to me rather than see them wasted. We have rehydrated while watching the slabs burn, a pleasant way to pass an evening with neighbors. The sawdust and planer shavings go behind the trail liner logs to make nice smooth level trails, easy, cheap and ammends the soil.

A favorite hickory of our client's fell during the winter, I drove up as the electrician was on his 5'th and last sawzall battery trying to get in. It was at their campsite when they first bought the property. I've sawn and stickered it in their unfinished basement for future projects.

Best and highest use? Rot it on site, nature's recycling at work.

Did the oxalic acid work on your stains?

[i_am_chris]

We are in the same mindset. The property was owned by a logger and they ended up losing some of the trees due to the steep terrain, like they cut and things just fell down the side of the mountain, then started decaying. When we had the excavators clear out the land they were supposed to stack any trees up for us to burn as firewood or take it away and sell it for lumber/firewood, but they just tossed most aside. Then, there is some stuff that just fell naturally and we are now trying to clear it out so mold/mildew/mushrooms/etc aren't in our general living are. So we have these to clear away. There's also some stuff that was smaller trees that wouldn't have made much of anything. Anyway, what I think we'll end up doing is creating an area on part of our land where we can relocate these and let them decay, maybe mix in some fertilizer and dirt and throw some wildflower seed on it. In the future we plan to harvest for our own firewood in a sustainable way (whatever that ends up meaning) and maybe use some of the stuff like you suggested ie trail linings, landscaping, whatever. Shame the loggers/excavators let that wood end up going to waste, we couldn't do much about it then but we will be much more proactive going forward.

(we haven't done anything about the wood staining yet, will post a reply when we do)

Cheers

[Mike44]

This post caught my eye and reminded me of something that I saw some time ago. Depending on the progress of the rotting of the wood, you may be able to put it through a wood chipper and get either some pretty decent "natural fertilizer" or some good mulch for your landscaping. If you use the wood that is really rotten and almost crumbly, it's really good for soil in the garden or grass if it has been broken all apart and spread. For some of the larger, harder logs, I'm not sure if a regular chipper could handle them, but it would certainly be worth a try. Maybe the neighbours could use some mulch too? I don't know, it would certainly be better than land fill.