Milling Logs

As luck would have it, the one day that CT and I decided to mill the logs, we finally got some snow, which of course turned into freezing rain and sleet. I wasn’t sure if CT was up for doing it, but like all real men, he wasn’t going to let bad weather stop him from running a saw mill. To add to the joy, he said he had a splitting headache and because of it couldn’t sleep the previous night. Who cares about a little pain?

Well, I was still (and still am, for that matter), sick as a dog, but I couldn’t be too much of a wimp in front of CT, he wouldn’t stand for that. Besides, with Winter practically here, at some point he has to put the mill and the excavator into storage. BTW, CT has a virtual treasure trove of grown-up male toys. He’s got an excavator, a 10-ton dump truck, a one ton, a saw mill, a tractor and a splitter. The guy is stocked, and what is truly amazing is that he actually built the mill, which is a band saw, and the splitter with his dad. Crazy. I was thinking PR would appreciate the work that went into that.

The first thing was to determine which logs were going to work. Our initial assessment, which was confirmation of what the logger DS said, was that only one of the maple logs was going to be useful, and the other two were rotting too much. However, to his credit, CT was willing to cut the others and at least have a look. The cutting took awhile because the maple is so incredibly hard, but eventually we worked our way through them and ended up with nearly ten beauiful slabs of 2 inch thick maple board. They are all about 16-20 inches wide, so if I rip them into 12 inch boards, we have some pretty nice pieces of wood, perfect for counter tops in the kitchen of the barn. I can’t even imagine how much all that would cost if you bought it through a lumber yard, I’m grateful to CT.

Also, in typical real man fashion, CT was not willing to call it a day until the job was completely finished. Usually, when I start doing something, as time ticks away, I just want it to be done, and start cutting corners and getting sloppy as the end is in sight. I”ve noticed with working with guys like my Mentor, PR, and JH and his magic bag of tools, when you begin a job, you work through it until it’s done. Wow, talk about inspiration.

I figured that we would cut the slabs and leave them on the ground and at some point I’d come over and haul them to our house, but CT started loading them into his 3/4 ton truck and brought them over. Even at that point, to make it easier on him, I said to just leave them on the ground in front of the barn, but he insisted on carrying them into the barn to protect them from the elements. This way, they would properly dry, and won’t freeze together in one massive block. He even showed me the proper way to space them so that they’ll breathe. What a guy, I’m grateful.

Now we have the wood. The pine logs are still uncut, but they’ll have to wait until Spring, but I’m not complaining.

Until the next time, thanks for reading.