My dad was a landscape architect by education so I grew up around plants and trees. I went to the University of New Hampshire and got a bachelor's degree in plant science, worked in grounds maintenance and landscaping for a while before starting my own business doing interior plantscaping. I reached a point where I was kind of "over" trees, been there done that. Then my wife and I bought my current home which had a wood stove and lots of woodland around. After coming across hearth.com and really getting interested in wood for heat, I started cutting wood seriously for our heat supply. Using wood for heat has opened up a whole new appreciation of trees, especially when I cut them and split them open. The wood is often beautiful, the smell of fresh wet red oak, the colors in a fresh wet piece of hemlock, the red of cherry and black birch, the yellow of black locust, etc. Well I must say that Madrone is absolutely gorgeous. Nice score BG. Nice to be able to appreciate the wood even before you burn it.
