If you’re carrying the log, it doesn’t consume xp nor raise a skill. Subsequently it appears I can’t chop up a log on the ground (You cannot build there!). Just updated from 4 prelease 2 to 4; using a wood axe. Also can’t chop down a tree. Erm. I can clean windows, so the menu still works.
Nvm, it may have been “chopping up a log” technically chops up tree trunks, and I may have been trying to chop down tree trunks, not logs.