The U.S. Forest Service says 3.8 billion board feet of good timber–felled from storms, construction, disease, or every-day tree removal–is trashed each year. That really bothered Chris Holmgren. The proprietor of Seneca Creek Joinery in Dickerson, Md., about 30 miles north of Washington, D.C., founded the Urban Wood Recovery Project with the help of a Forest Service grant and one mission: Let no trees go to waste. Holmgren now has partnerships with local communities and companies to take fallen wood from storms, trims, removals, whatever and make them into useful things. Get him the wood, he'll give you a product.
Some girls like dolls, others like ponies. Norma Vally liked tools. The Brooklyn native remembers helping her father with fix-it projects as a very young girl, 'whatever age a kid can hold a tool,' she says, which turns out to be a great background, given her current status as the 'Toolbelt Diva' on Discovery Channel's Emmy-nominated series.
