I’m a Lumberjack and I’m OK!

After struggling with mud, snow, ice, slush, and bitter cold, we finished our log sawing project today.

We cut down a bunch of ‘junk’ trees; dead ash trees, trees that were leaning out into fields, trees that had split, trees that were never going to be commercial lumber.

We dragged all those logs up to the farmyard.

Then we had Dave Scheiber of Bent Tree Sawmill bring his portable sawmill out and turn the logs into lumber.

Dave’s phone number is prominently displayed in the photo above. Give him a call if you need some logs sawed![1]

This is the coolest tree we cut.

It’s a spalted maple. Spalting is caused by a fungus that infects the tree and makes these flame patterns in the wood.

It’s so cool another picture is in order.

I had Dave cut it into 2 inch thick slabs and leave one side natural with the bark on. I plan to make a slab table with natural sides out of it.

We saved the best log for last. A huge red oak about 30 inches in diameter and over 16 feet long.

It weighed easily 3000 pounds, including Bernie who is trotting across the top of it.

All those logs resulted in lumber.

Fencing boards and hay wagon flooring and furniture boards.

The slabs of spalted maple and other boards.

Big pieces of oak for the underpinnings of a hay wagon. Those big slabs of oak on the left are 3 1/2″ by 10″ by 16′ and weigh a good 150 pounds each.

Alas it wasn’t all sawdust and good times. We ruined one of Dave’s saw blades on this.

A lag screw someone had screwed into a log a good 8 feet off the ground. That brought the operation to a screeching halt. Fortunately it was the only foreign object we encountered.

We also ended up with about 6 pickup loads of slab wood, the rounded parts of bark and sapwood you cut off the log so you get a square piece to start slicing boards from. We cut the slabs into short pieces to burn in the fireplace next winter.

It was hard work and took a lot of time, but the end result of a huge pile of lumber and firewood is very satisfying.

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1. zumbrun.net is, as always, entirely commercial-free. I’ve received no
consideration from Bent Tree Sawmill for my effusive endorsement.