that was nice of them to give you back a piece of the wood, molded into a different shape, that you gave them..
wood hoarder... yea me too. Im always looking in the dumpsters at our marina to see what kind of wood i can scavenge from somebody elses remodel scraps... some NICE stuff at times.
My father-in-law was a longshoreman back in the 60's, 70's and 80's, and he always collected and brought home the dunnage timbers, plywood sheeting and other scrap wood used in building the shipping crates and pallets, from the ships that were loaded in other countries. he learned what was valuable and what was not, and did very well just selling what was otherwise going to the dump. I have used up about all he had left on various projects, and so im left to scavenge where I can and when I need a larger piece of wood than what I have to complete a project, I cut various small pieces and plane them all to the same thickness and glue and clamp them together with resorcinol to make a larger beam.... (it can be many feet long and as big as you have small pieces to keep stacking on to it) then trim the piece to size for my project.. it makes for some very nice looking wood work when its finished properly.