Tidying the Woodland

I walked up to the town centre via the woodland, there were at least 3 Hornbeam trees which had been sawn down badly at about 2-3 feet from the ground, with a cut which had split down the stump.
I returned later with my saw and tidied up two of them cutting them at about 45 degrees about 10" from the ground, hopefully they'll sprout up next spring.
A guy was passing walking his dogs and said he'd seen a party of school kids from the secondary school the other side of the wood doing clearing and tidying of the pathways and he though a couple of the kids had strayed from the supervision and got a bit saw happy. I'm in no position to criticise, have done done my share of daft things as a kid.
Anyhow I managed to salvage a nice length of hornbeam from the one in the pic' which will hopefully give me a nice pair of billets to splice together into a decent length stave. It's 51/2" diameter and 56" long (whoops I originally put 5'6").
I've not spliced billets before, when I get round to it I'll post the pics.
It weighed a ton and I was sweating like a pig by the time I got home with it across my shoulders like a yoke. Second pic shows how I left it. I also cut a skinny stave from one of the branches, it might make a little primitive bend through the handle bow. I'd rather pick up a stave and then find it's no good later rather than sit at home wishing I'd picked it up.