Using Red Cedar Poles

I’ve been using red cedar poles for years. They make great chicken roosts.

The advantages to red cedar include the smell. This does diminish over the years. The tree tends to have a trunk that stays much the same diameter for a long distance . There are usually lot of them in a small area. And they are easy to cut down.

Maybe that last one is a stretch. Red cedar trees are lined with branches. Each branch must be cut off. Many of them are small enough to use loppers instead of a saw.

red cedar poles come from large red cedar trees
Although the tree is called red cedar, it is a juniper. It takes advantage of any open area and can come up in hordes. Few animals eat red cedar. Goats do in the fall and winter, possibly deer as well. The berries are valued by birds like cedar waxwings. It is a good roosting spot for many birds especially in bad weather. However, too many of the trees will kill out competing plants.

Why the sudden interest in red cedar poles? I don’t need any at the moment. That may change as the goats like to browse on them in the winter.

As I write “The Carduan Chronicles,” I realize many of the things easily available to me won’t be to these small survivors. That includes lumber. They do have the wooden crates their supplies are packed in. But that will be all the lumber available.

They want to build things. At the moment shelving is needed to keep kitchen pots and pans and utensil up off the ground. They will need to store food supplies.

red cedar poles for the Carduans
Red cedar saplings tend to have trunks that stay the same diameter for two to three feet. They are about three quarter of an inch in diameter. There is no red center, only white sapwood with lots of resin. Still, they will work as poles for small building projects.

This is where the red cedar poles enter the story. They will make excellent uprights to hold these shelves. Granted that these poles will not have the lovely red centers as such trees are much larger than the Carduans would care to tackle. But the white wood lasts a long time when kept dry and is easy to work with.

The resin might be a problem. But these survivors need to make torches and the resin will work very well. That is, it will once they learn how to start a fire.

Come to think of it, those red cedar poles will work as roof rafters too. Oak might be better, but they don’t know that. Yet.

Read more about Ozark red cedar in “Exploring the Ozark Hills.”