Vance Wood

This thread turned into the subject of collected material and some seem to think that this is an underutilized resource here in the States. I would have to agree on the face of it. However there are a lot of good collected trees out there that a lot of people are not aware of simply because they are never displayed in some of the publications that would give them world-wide exposure.

That being said it is also important to understand the politics over here. It is not as easy to collect these trees as it once was. We have a very active and worng headed environmental movement that has made it virtually impossible for many trees to be harvested legally without a ton of paper work and possibly months of waiting.

I am reminded of a situation I ran into at work. I was sent to repair a bathroom vainity marble top. I was instructed to take some marble stain remover with me to the project and remove a stain on this marble top. The only problem is there is no such thing as a stain remover that will take stains out of marbel available in this country. The short of the story, it is easy to say a thing when you are the one that does not have to do the thing. So it is easy to say we need utilize natural materials more (I agree) but that is not so simple as saying it is so.