I am at work cleaning up ice-storm debris. An oak, fifteen inches in diameter and forty-five feet tall, lies across a shallow draw by my house. Its downed limbs provide firewood, while its trunk is left in place to become a child care center for tree seedlings and a halfway house for small animals. Like so many older trees it has a rotted hollow core and couldn't stand the added weight of the ice. There is much yard damage in my neighborhood, but the ravine has little harm except along the trail where the forest, lacking a protective canopy, is open to the full force of weather. In uncut areas, trees have neighbors as shields and interlocking branches to lean on.

Chain saws are the noise of the day. Walking about the neighborhood, I see no evidence of chipping to recycle the wood as mulch. There is good firewood too and even wood for carpentry, but people are piling it along the street for the city to pick up. No sense in useable wood being burned and buried in the landfill, dumping more carbon into the sky to thicken the atmosphere's heat-retaining, greenhouse layer. Why not a city-sponsored firewood, mulch, and compost center, supplied by the organic refuse it picks up at curbside and funded by selling the products?