We’re moving along at a snails pace in our endeavor into the slow building movement. Last winter we harvested the trees for a pavilion and cabin, piling them in the sawmill area, and then the weeds grew up around the logs while crop farming consumed our time. For the past several months it has been hard to imagine finding time to work on the cabin project, that is until this past week, when Carl’s brother Greg showed up, all the way from Missouri to saw trees. THANKS GREG! And thanks to our farm crew who took responsibility for the crop production side of the farm while we were sawing!
Looking at a pile of logs in the weeds was intimidating to both Carl and I. We wondered which tree to begin with…. How to get the log onto the sawmill because most of the logs are too heavy for our front-end loader to lift… Evaluating each log trying to decide which log to saw first… What part of the pavilion each of the logs should be sawn into so that we are getting as much board feet from each of log as is possible.. And the list of intimidating thoughts go on and on. It took a lot of time to fell the trees, limb the trees, buck the trees into logs and haul them out of the forest so we want to get the most board feet as is possible from each tree.
Our logs in our staging area with weeds grown up around them! It doesn’t look like it, but there are a lot of logs in this area, and probably not enough for the cabin. So guess what we will be doing again this upcoming winter?
Our first task was figuring out how to get the log onto the sawmill. When Carl was visiting an Amish sawyer prior to purchasing the mill, he noticed that he had ramps for rolling logs onto his mill, because the Amish farmer didn’t use a tractor. So our first sawing assignment was building the ramps. This photograph is Greg and Carl making ramps for rolling trees onto the sawmill.
Greg digging out a bit near the beginning of our ramp so that we have a gentle slope allowing us to roll a tree onto the mill.
Using the tractor winch in pulling the tree up to the ramp.
Carl and Greg testing the ramp out by rolling a hemlock onto the mill using the ramp. They are using peavey and cant hook to roll the log.
: Using the winch attached to the sawmill for the final turn of this HUGE log off the ramp and onto the sawmill.
The ramp works GREAT and the hemlock is now on the sawmill.
We have a cut list for our pavilion that has all the lumber needed. We evaluate each tree deciding if it can be best sawn into. We like for those lumber that will be carrying a lot of weight to be sawn from the heart wood, while the lumber carrying less weight can be sawn from the perimeter of the tree. This is a very complicated math problem and by the end of our first week sawing Greg and Carl were beginning to get the hang of it. The log may have a bit of sweep which also is factored into what lumber sizes may be sawn from the tree. The trees are PRECIOUS, because most of our tress are more than 75 years of age, so evaluating what should be sawn from the tree takes a little advance planning.
This is just one of the timbers sawn for the pavilion. These are LARGE and HEAVY timbers!
Using forks that are clamped to our front-end loader for moving timber the stack of lumber for the pavilion. Some of these timbers are too heavy for us to carry. We were amazed at how much these timbers would lighten up just after one day of drying.
Our yield after our second day of sawing. The first day was spent mostly figuring out how to get the log onto the mill and the second day figuring how to get the most board feet from the tree.
What Kaiser thinks of sawing!
THANKS to Meadow Fork Creek and our irrigation pump that we set up for cleaning the logs!
After dulling a saw blade the first day of sawing lumber, we decided to use our irrigation pump and a garden hose to wash the rocks/grit off the tree before it is sawn. We need a little more pressure so might try our pressure washer in the near future. In the past, our forefathers would cut/limb/buck the trees then float the logs down the river to the sawmill, which I guess would clean the logs. Greg washing the log while Carl is resting on the Peavey.
Alvin Kirkpatrick has SO GRACIOUSLY allowed us to use his track hoe to haul logs to the mill which is SAVING us a lot of time. ALVIN IS AMAZING! The trees stay much cleaner with the track hoe because one is not dragging them through the dirt and rocks like that done with the tractor winch. Carl can simply lift the trees and place them on the ramp for cleaning. Then we roll the tree onto the mill.
The pavilion after day 3 of sawing
The pavilion after day 5 of sawing
This is a pile of 1 x’s that were cut from the outer edges when squaring a log. This entire stack needs to be edged which is a very time consuming job. One must group all into like widths, then put a stack on the sawmill, then turn a couple times to remove the bark from both sides. Our neighbor Alvin wants to us to all go in on designing a process to make edging easier.
This weeks favorite tool is the peavey and cant hook.. We would like to purchase another peavey, because when rolling a tree up the ramp and onto the mill we can’t get a good grip with the cant hook, and it takes at least two of us to roll that log onto the mill. Click here to read about the peavey.
Our family share delivered 8/15 and 8/18. Included in this share is slicing and cherry tomatoes, sweet corn, beets, leeks, yellow and white bulb onions, potaotes, green/red/yellow/orange sweet bell peppers, yellow squash, garlic, jalapeno and serrano peppers.
Production Note to Self: We just had our smallest vegetable harvest in over 6 years so we are thankful to have pork as another mix in our production. We’ve had rain nearly every day for the past month. We’ve had a few successions of lettuce not germinate, our summer squash has died rather early, our beans did not yield, the crows ate most of our sweet corn and melons, our basil has downy mildew, our a lot of our parsly has dyed most likely from phytophthora, our cucurbit transplants have been very POOR, and our eggplant yield is WAY DOWN. When it rains it pours! Our next crop of beans are growing rather slowly, and our winter squash just died this week and our yield looks to be nearly half of that last year, and last years winter squash yield was down. My winter job is to think of something to change in our production, for this time next year, that will be a backup crop. Perhaps the lettuce thing is just VERY UNUSUAL so next year it will be back to normal and we have our cucurbit problem figured out.
