Hmm looks like I set her to appear only during Day time... she wont appear at night. I'll change it so she appears all day in the next release, but for now she is only there during light hours.
Wood is gathered by cutting down the Juniper Trees, they are the only "Animated" tree so they should be easy to spot.
At the moment Perception is mostly useful for seeing Traps on chests or Stealth Enemies from far away, but you need the Guile's spec "Disarm Trap" to really get the most out of it.
I plan to add some Optional "Character Presets" in the next release as I noticed some players make characters that are a bit difficult to play, at least in first play-throughs.