Hi, Chris.
We did see a small logging operation. Looked like a farmer using a
fairly large diesel wheeled farm tractor. He was yarding the logs,
softwood and hardwood, to a landing where he had constructed a frame
from logs to keep the rest of the logs off the ground. I think he was
using the tractor scoop to get the logs up on the frame and then push
them together. (I am from a logging and sawmill family). I was
particularly impressed by the German program to keep mixed species
forests.

The wood we saw near Tittise could have been a meter long and could
have been debarked and they were near a trail. We suspected it belonged
to the farm we walked past since the trail went right by the house/barn
and then right next to their cow pasture. The wood was certainly
rotting, however.

Yes, "Rothenburg ob der Tauber" is where we had lunch and then went on
a walk around the town.

Our son's girl friend's mother took us to lunch at Rothenburg. She was
a secretary or book keeper at a building material company. She took a
long lunch because it was Thursday and no one would do any work untill
after the lottery numbers were announced on the Radio. Her company had
a lot of wood air drying in little roofed sheds. Perhaps 3 sided sheds?
She said they left it to dry for several years. If I remember
correctly, it was just rough-cut and quite thick timbers. Hardwood, I
think.

At least in Europe, they try to keep the people all living in town and
villages. That leaves the farm land for it's intended use. However, we
saw in some places where they had given up and let the houses take over
the farm land.

We used to live 20 miles East of Seattle. The house had electric heat
plus a fireplace insert for wood and a small wood stove in the
basement. We bought some firewood the first year, 1986/1987. We sold in
1998 and moved to Central Oregon. All the years from 1987 to 1998,we
never bought any more firewood and almost never used the electric heat.
We cut a few fir and cedar trees on our property, but got loads of free
wood and trees from either the neighbors or from land being cleared to
build houses. Also picked up lots of scrap wood from various wood
manufacturing plants in the area.

Same thing happening here in Central Oregon, except the trees are
almost all juniper. Some people here call them "weeds"! Our home is
quickly being surrounded by new houses and almost all the trees will be
pulled out by the roots and trucked to a recycling plant. They have to
pay to recycle, so would rather we cut the trees up for firewood.

Best Regards
Paul in Redmond, OR