Re: Driftwood.

[Thomas Barr <tcbiii at earthlink_net>]

William,

I'd stay away from branches blown in to the yard.

I know where some nice wood is off of Penngrove road real close to Sonoma
State there in Cotati (Sonoma Mt rd, the first rd on the left after the
college going south to Penngrove). It's about 2 miles or so up the road.
Near the end closest to Santa Rosa there's some nice fallen wood. There may
be more laying around elsewhere.
You'll have to hunt around for it.
  
They have a flying disc golf course and a park (a County park I believe)
where I found some of the nicest wood I've found to date.

You want dense heavy hard wood. No "air" wood. You very often have to take a
knife to cut off any soft parts. The wood is live oak and is very hard if
not rotting. So you cut away everything that you can with a knife. You will
have a great deal of trouble cutting into hard non rotting oak, I can
promise you that. Take only downed wood. Careful when moving wood for
scorpians and rattlers (not many along Sonoma Mt, CA king snakes eat them
and there are plenty of those there).

The other close by place is Burke's canoe rentals off of River Road in
Forestville. Con the parents to take a canoe trip down the river and stop
and collect wood and weeds along the route. They will like it and so will
you. There are also FW clams in the river.

It's a bit cold and rainy now so you might have to wait till summer for that
location. I took the trip in August and there was a load of wood. Nice
Redwood all along the course. Other areas are along some of the back roads
by the creeks. Try by Spring Lake too.

There's a little creek along Petrified Forest Rd that has very dense
wood.....errr rock.....there are a few places folks can parkn the car and
jump out and wander along the creek close to the petrified forest there.
The stream also has some native darters but they will die if the water is
above 75F. 

Caulk Hill road has a few spots as well. The other spots are over near Glen
Ellen or up by Mt St Helena.

Small dead Manzanita trees/wood work also(these look a deep reddish in color
and have muscle like trunks and branches and are often small, none over 20
feet or so high). These will need to be soaked but do well later.

Then there are those old grape vine Stumps they pull out every so often. Not
like you don't have enough of those lying around up there in what's becoming
the second Napa county.

Now try and get a more detailed response than this:-)
Now all you need is a car to get to these places. Soon enough.

Regards, 
Tom Barr