As I begin to thin our woodland, I'll be accumulating a supply of 4" fir and pine, 4" - 10" madrone (some straight, some twisty), and gobs and gobs of twisty manzanita, about 1/2" - 4" in diameter. There are larger
trees, but I hope I won't need to be cutting any of them. There are also lots of small rocks (6" diameter and less) and some larger ones (around 12" dia.). The soil is about 5' deep to bedrock. There are really no vines growing here, or willow, but there are plenty of pliable poison oak stems.
I'd like to use collected material to build fencing, a
chicken coop, donkey/goat
shelter, shade house, and propagation/greenhouse.
I've run across posts in the forum that suggest pine/fir buried in the ground won't last long - not good
fence post candidates. But what about as
fence rails? I'll be building a fence to keep in dogs, as the outermost ring of my livestock/garden zone system. Is there fence design that uses posts to hold vertical slash piles? Would pine posts last long
enough for other trees to grow in place to replace them? Our climate is rainy winters (20") and dry from May till November. My soil is rocky/gravelly loam ... a bit on the clay side with moderate drainage.
I'm looking at cordwood construction for the
chicken coop, and perhaps the back wall of the propagation house (which may be a shared wall with the donkey/goat house).
I've done plenty of building with milled lumber, but have no idea how to get started with fresh cut small trees and bushes. Where can I learn about conditioning the
wood, joinery, tools, jigs, etc?
I'm hoping you can give me some references to
books, websites, courses, and other sources of learning. I'd also love to see some of the projects you've built with collected
native (or cultured) materials.