Do you use live or dead standing logs?

We prefer live trees. We know that every healthy, slow growth tree from Canada's Dry Belt Region, (we harvest in winter for lower sap content) will build a superior Heritage Log Structure. Ocassionally, a client will request dead standing. Dead standing is either fire kill or beetle kill so there will be bore holes and blue stain in the logs, the common myth that dead standing logs do not shrink is addressed next.