"Saving the Redwoods"

by Katie Watts
ARGUS-COURIER
November 3, 2004

When the first sawmill was built north of the bay, there were 2 million acres of redwoods in Northern California, Michael Deakin said. Now, 150 years later, that's been reduced 96 percent, to 85,000 acres. Deakin's new company, Heritage Salvage, is saving the redwoods

"These chickens had it good," Michael "Bug" Deakin said. He's standing in a 20 x 90 foot chicken house on Petaluma's west side. A narrow aisle from front to back is formed by stacks, and stacks, and stacks of salvaged lumber. The chicken house, and much of the lumber, is old-growth redwood, cut and milled probably 80 years ago.

Deakin is a man on a mission: to save what remains of Northern California's once-luxuriant 2 million acres of redwood groves.

"They had been here two million years," he said. "Then the first sawmill came in. We are so damned efficient than in 150 years, we have trashed 96 percent. We've decimated them."

Seventeen years ago, Deakin was driving through California. "I fell in love with the fact that redwoods and palm trees grew in the same place and said 'here's the place for me.'" He bought three acres in Occidental in the redwoods. "I'd climb them and trim them. I cut some down for views, but used all the lumber on the property.

"I loved driving by and checking out chicken shacks and barns that were slowly morphing into the hillsides, rotting. I wanted to save some redwood trees, and here was all this beautiful old-growth redwood just going to waste. I put an ad in the paper advertising for chicken shacks, old barns and redwood and people started calling." He'd go out on weekends, aided by a couple of friends and take down the decrepit structures.

Finally he realized this was what he needed to be doing, and dedicated himself full-time to what he calls heritage salvage.

On the advice of his "marketing guru," Deakin, a former custom home builder, decided to follow his bliss. Early this year, he took out a home equity loan, found the chicken house rental on-line and set out to save and re-use as much old wood as he could.

He's got so much wood now that storing it requires part of another chicken coop, plus large quantities stacked behind the coops. He knows the history of every piece he touches. "There's 40,000 square feet of flooring over there, 13 x 17 center-cut fir over there and 1 x 12s going on forever.

"These oak beams are hand-hewn and 20 feet long," Deakin said. "Now you're talking about a builder. This guy was obviously not in a hurry to build his barn."

Deakin loves the wood as it is now, battered, grey and weather-beaten, with the seams and wrinkles that come with age. He pointed with pleasure to an old chicken feeding trough, its edges scored and fissured by decades of chicken claws.

But he also loves the Cinderella-like transformation that's possible: the smooth, mellow red-gold glow of the redwood once the dry grey husk is sanded away.

"There's a historical perspective to each one," he said.

To keep that history alive, Deakin will give the new owners of the furniture, garden shed, whatever he's crafted from the former chicken shack, a photo of the original chicken house and a little of its history. People not only sell or give him the wood, they tell him the stories that go with it, where the chicken house was located, who built it and when.

This weekend, he'll have a booth created from some of his old, patined wood at the Green Festival, a two-day event celebrating sustainability, at the San Francisco Concourse (go to www.greenfestivals.com for more information).

He'll take down the booth Monday and move it to the Petaluma Historical Museum and Library, where he'll give a talk on Heritage Salvage at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 10.

He's hoping for a large turnout: old-time Petalumans who might be able to answer questions he has about items he's found; people who either have wood for him to salvage, or who are remodeling or repairing vintage homes and want him to supply the wood.

Not all the wood he salvages is useable for furniture, wainscoting, flooring, barns or garden structures. But Deakin still knows how to use it: worm and compost bins for local schools. His first one is for Salmon Creek School, the second one for Petaluma's Valley Vista School.

There's no charge for the bins, "but the students should help me put it together and study composting." Deakin is concerned about this country's eating habits. "It's time we taught kids more about nutrition, and we should start from the ground up."

Deakin envisions compost and worm bins all around town, with a special twist, a "worm trail.

"If I do my first one at Valley Vista then, at the next school, I'll take some of the Valley Vista worms, and the same thing at the other schools. There would end up being a worm trail around town."

And, as if the wood salvage and compost and worm bins aren't enough, Deakin is working on Fogcatchers, "helping kids at risk by teaching them a trade," in his case, working with the wood, learning carpentry and cabinet-making.

Everyone he talks to, he said, loves the idea of Fogcatchers and many have told him they'd like to help as well, working with troubled youth in their fields: gardening, landscaping, art, music, animal rescue.

"What I want to do with Fogcatchers, is to be able to give value and purpose to at-risk kids and get them turning around and thinking about our at-risk planet, Mother Earth. That's the biggest part of all: nobody's paying attention, and it's time we paid attention, because she's the only reason we're here."

Over the door to his chicken house, Deakin has a small sign, Good ideas do fly. And like chickens, they come home to roost.

(Heritage Salvage hours are by appointment. Contact Michael Deakin at 799-4418 or 874-9010.)

CREATIVE RE-USE OF WOOD

Who: Michael "Bug" Deakin of Heritage Salvage

Where: Petaluma Museum, 20 Fourth St.

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 10

What: Deakin will talk about his business, rescuing and re-using old wood, such as chicken houses, for furniture, flooring, wainscoting, sheds and more.