Part of the CERES Fair Food newlsetter series, words by Chris Ennis.
On Friday, sustainable architect and CERES Fair Wood patron, Paul Haar, was profiled in a wonderful piece on Gardening Australia.
A theme throughout Paul’s career has been the creative and thoughtful use of timber in his buildings coupled with an equally creative and thoughtful approach to sourcing wood.
One of the creative and thoughtful timber sources Paul’s introduced to Fair Wood has been milling trees that have fallen across roads or are endangering houses.
The storm that tore through Victoria a week and a half ago brought down so many mature trees that Hayden Cronin, Fair Wood’s manager, has been inundated by emails asking for help – including one from a landholder in Newbury who had lost more than 100 trees.
Offers of fallen trees to mill were already coming in after the story we did on urban sawmiller Paul McKay but since last week’s storm we are now thinking about how we can do more to save these trees from becoming firewood and mulch.
With so many trees on the ground and time against him, Hayden mused this week that if Fair Wood had a space to keep the logs he could progressively mill them through the year.