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How do you acquire your wood? (Poll)

How do you aquire your wood?

  • I purchase exclusively

    Votes: 5 4.7%
  • I purchase occasionally

    Votes: 30 28.0%
  • I only purchase when absolutely necessary

    Votes: 22 20.6%
  • I harvest exclusively

    Votes: 25 23.4%
  • I harvest occasionally

    Votes: 42 39.3%
  • I swap, barter or take free wood

    Votes: 66 61.7%
  • I don't do any of the following

    Votes: 2 1.9%

  • Total voters
    107
  • Poll closed .
There is a website called chipdrop that will add your name to a list for arborists to drop off their woodchips or logs. Free to use but you get what you get. I don't have the yard space to accept a truckload of logs to try it though.
 
Most of the wood I turn comes from the muddy bottom of the Altamaha river. Wood from the fresh water (upsteam) usually dates from 500 to 15000 years old. Wood from the tidal zone can be up to 40,000 years old. I have known the Harvester who has been in the log recovery business since about 1985. Below is a photo of a piece I like to make from scraps that were recovered from the tidal zone and is probably 15,000 years old, i.e. the time it fell into the river. The inherent natural beauty of the material is sometimes mind bending. I give everything away.

Between my neighbor and myself, we have about 600 acres of trees with some burls the size of a small SUV. My neighbor has a 1924 single cylinder John Deer saw mill, set up by Rube Goldberg himself. It runs on gas, diesel, naptha, kerosene, etc.

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