Phillip Deese

Glenn Herbert wrote:The best way to get wood to rot (short of burying it) is to leave the bark on. If you soak the slabs with enough poisons to get through the bark, maybe it won't rot soon, but pine bark won't stick to the log long outdoors in any case.

So I'm guessing I should debark everything BEFORE treating and assembly? What about burying the smaller logs for posts? I've heard several different ways to slow decay. One is dig hole about 18-24" and big enough around to put pole in plus about 2", put gravel in bottom about 3 inches deep, put pole in HEAVY PLASTIC bag or visquuen etc big enough to make "pocket" for pole, insert into hole, fill with cement/quikcrete etc on OUTSIDE OF BAG. Leave about 6"-12" of bag sticking up to use for next 2 months. During those 2 months and the day of putting poles in, pour diesel into bag until it's ground level making sure to keep it contained inside bag. Only takes about 1-2 cups depending on several factors. Tie rope, string whatever around top of bag to hold it up. Do this religiously every 7 days for 8 weeks and post will have soaked in 1/2- 1 gallon of diesel, thus slowing the rotting process. After 8 weeks, cut bag off leaving about 2" sticking up, then mix quick Crete and make a "cone" around post about 3-4" up. And it's done.

Has anyone ever heard of anything like this?

Another note, there is a pond directly down hill about 150' away, not directly in front of stumps but about 50 feet west of it.

Ok, so here goes;

Pics show before and after pine trees were cut down. They were trimmed by power company (butchered actually) yearly due to being directly under power lines. They finally made them look so bad i had them all cut down, leaving approximately 4ft of tree trunk in ground to use as natural fence line/posts. The 2 on either side of my driveway were left about 7 feet tall to use as lamp posts and attaching bird feeders. I will be cutting the remaining logs left over to make the fence rails. 4 cuts on each log to end up with a square post for use elsewhere, but the cuttings will be about 1 1/2-2" with bark in tact and nailed directly to remaining stumps.
My question is, should I strip the bark from everything (which I don't want to do, I want to keep "the old west, natural look") and then treat, or treat as is. Question 2, how do I treat left over stumps and logs after cutting for fence rails.

Now that you're thoroughly confused, I await your replies!! Thanks in Advance.