I have a stretch of wooded area and of course I use the timber for
firewood. But it is rather neat that in my forest management how
I use the branches and bark thereof.

For firewood I use all wood that is about the diameter of my two
thumbs put together. If smaller than that I use it as a liner to the
fences
where I keep the horse and llama as a inside liner so that they
stay away from the fence itself and through time those branches
compost into the soil. For twigs, I use them on the foot patches
and the pathes that the horse and llama create so that it is not
muddy but rather twiggy and my boots do not become muddy.
I do not burn bark in the fireplace unless I cannot avoid it. It
does not burn well and leaves too much ash. So I use the bark to
cover the muddy footpathes around the buildings and in the woods.

The ash from the winter time fireplace is used on the footpathes
also, and the llama likes to have his "pad" full of ashes.

Most people with twigs and branches would tend to set them on
fire in a controlled burn. But this is wasteful and makes the air
dirty. So I think more people ought to take their branches and
twigs and decompost them. Provided that they do not present a
fire hazard.

Also, another nice feature of using branches as a fence liner
to keep the animals in, is that it provides shelter for alot of birds
such as pheasants.

The main thing is that we should avoid the "usual-- burn it
and be rid of it", but rather to decompose and enrich the
soil rather than dirty the air.

Now in some of our National Parks where there is alot of wood
around and alot of trails in the park, something like this could
be a useful adaption and since there are those tree limb shredders
that make wood chips. Is to use those chips to line the
pathes and trails in the Parks.

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies