Thursday 1 April 2010

Help!

I hope someone reading this can give me some advice.  I have a great deal of cedar sawdust (a couple of Rubbermaid bins full).   If I can use this in some way, I will, but if not, I need to know of the best way to dispose of it.

I have read that throwing it into the woods, onto the lawn, or mixing with other compost may not be the best choices because cedar takes forever to rot away, and when it is decomposing it leaches nitrogen from the soil. 

It is also not a wise choice for a fire starter in a wood stove, because it explodes.

I could make some little sachets for drawers and dog pillows  to discourage moths and creepy crawlies, but really ... the amount of sawdust I am dealing with is far too large for such a project. 

So ... any ideas?

And that, my friends, tells you how I will be spending several hours of  this glorious weekend.  The amazing temperatures will finally melt away all the residual ice and snow imprisoning the construction debris and free the lake from its current dangerous state of being halfway between water and ice.  I will have to work in small bursts because my hips give way, but the weather should be good for several such spurts of industry.

Happy Easter weekend.

3 comments:

kingmisha said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
kingmisha said...

Blogger kingmisha said...

In my past incarnation as a sculptor, I used sawdust for a variety of things.

1. Mix it with sand and cement to make a beautiful natural coloured concrete which I poured into molds to
make pavers, or into frames to make walkways and patios.

2. I would also mix it with Bond Fast glue to make a workable paste to fill cracks in wood sculptures and wooden furniture. It dried hard, could be sanded, and looked like wood.

3. It can also be mixed into paint to provide texture when applied.

For the rest, dig a pit and bury it.

That's all I can think of.

Cheers

4 April 2010 01:50

Oma said...

Thank you! Thank you! I need to create a path in the new garden, and I like the idea of trying a cedar tinted walkway on a grey cut stone base. Then I can make some cedar boxes for the plants I will keep in planters ...

And two of my found chairs require some help where the previous owner yanked off the arms before discarding ... and they will be in that garden too.

I am so glad that I didn't just pitch it; that I asked first!