Last Saturday a poplar tree was felled on the same property as the Edible Wood Farm in Gaanderen (east Netherlands). It had begun its life as a seed from a nearby poplar tree and after travelling a short distance with the wind, had settled down to grow some roots. Unfortunately it was in the wrong place and had to be removed. The tree was healthy and quite straight without having any side branches. 
No problem for the chainsaw. Once the tree was lying on the grond it was easy to cut into logs with a length of 1 meter. The diameters ranged from 10 cm to almost 30 cm. Any tree log with a diameter bigger than 20 cm is uncomfortably heavy to carry and an unexpected fall on an unprotected foot should be avoided. A purple toenail is quite impressive but not very enjoyable (my own experience).
For me this is a good example of why I work with Edible Wood. Under normal circumstances the wood of the poplar tree would have been turned into firewood. There is nothing wrong with firewood but in my opinion you should try and get the best out of a tree and the leftovers (and/or diseased or damaged wood) should only then be turned into firewood. In this case the extra bonus was the lack of working kilometers.
Everything took and will take place on one location. The logs will be innoculated in a couple of weeks, dressed up with cord and instructions and sold elsewhere to eager customers as edible logs. Next year most of the logs should be ready to produce their first meal of delicious oyster mushrooms at their new homes.
A wonderful way of turning wood into food.
