It's a sad truth of the urban landscape: Today's street tree is tomorrow's mulch.
But in the foothills of Santa Barbara, a former stuntman and onetime sea-urchin diver named Rob Bjorklund turns fallen city trees into flooring, mantels, plaques and massive, irregularly shaped conference tables that appear to be suited for a wizard's laboratory.
He uses oaks toppled by storms; eucalyptuses leveled by bulldozers; trees taken down for being too old, too sick, too close to foundations, too hard on sidewalks. Many would otherwise be cut for firewood or buried in a landfill.
"All these awesome logs!" said Bjorklund, a rangy 52-year-old who tends to sprinkle his conversation with exclamation points when he talks about wood.
A few local governments also salvage toppled trees.
"Why should we clear-cut the Amazon when we can work toward using the woods we have?" she asked.
clipped from: www.latimes.com 
