Day 585 on our forever property was a sweaty one. First up is a firewood haul. Mr. Jack gave us 20-ish red oak logs and said we could get as much firewood from his brush pile as we wanted before he burned it. I loaded up my chainsaws and fuel, and off we went.

Free firewood is great. Free firewood that is already pulled from the woods and neatly stacked is even better. There was a LOT of firewood available. He said we can have as much as we want before he burns it all to get rid of it. Mr. Jack doesn’t heat with wood, apparently.

Before I started cutting, I noticed he had pulled more red oak logs from the woods for us. Mr. Jack retired three years ago, and he is on a mission to clean up his generational property. He said this entire property was his playground as a kid.

The firewood haul was supposed to be with just me and Mr. Keith, who is getting the firewood. Well, TK said she wanted to go, and when two of us three head somewhere, the third usually joins as well. Sometimes a change of scenery is nice. Speaking of scenery, the beautiful fall colors were on display.

I ran the saws as much as possible, Mr. Keith helped where he could, Jamie worked her butt off as usual, and TK went log hunting to find the perfect size rounds for her to load up.

We stopped when my 7′ x 16′ trailer was rounded over. This load was entirely for Mr. Keith. He just put a wood-burning stove in his home and will be heating with wood for the first time this year. This should help him stay toasty! We delivered it to his place, and unloading was MUCH easier and faster than loading.

I need to focus on material storage one day. In the meantime, a pair of 4×4 posts will be good to keep the nice beams off the ground.

Pallet forks are handy, especially when they were the only option I had. But darn are they hard to use when the tractor blocks nearly all visibility. TimberKing says the most common damage to sawmills is from other equipment, and I see why!

What a difference beetles can make. These porch posts are cut from trees that didn’t have beetles in them. Beautiful stuff!

I couldn’t take it anymore, back to the grapple. A third function kit and grapple was a big purchase for us, and it has been totally worth it.

Logs this size really make me wish I had hydraulics.

Typically, the 90-degree cut is made immediately after establishing the first flat face, but I’ve found that I get better results by establishing opposite faces before the 90-degree cut. Material is removed from opposite sides, so stress is reduced evenly. More material is removed before the 90 degree cut, which makes balancing the log and making sure a flat face is flush on the log stops easier. Also, the more material removed, the wider the reference face becomes. I’ve found that the opposite-side cutting sequence results in just as good lumber quality and a much easier and faster process.

After the square cant is formed, I put any boards that need edging back on the mill. If it si only one or two logs, it is faster to cut them all as I work down to the final size of the cant. If there are many, it is quicker to wait until the end and process them all at once.

 

The reason I tried the pallet forks for the first 10×10 was to prevent the grapple from damaging the wood. The lack of visibility was a deal breaker for me. The grapple is just so much easier to use. I ended up adding two sacrificial boards so I could stick with the grapple.

Rinse and repeat. While making the posts, we were also cutting true 1x10s for Mr. Jack. He’s going to enclose a pavilion near his pond with pine boards and battens. The logs for the 10×10 porch post beam job just happened to be enough to take care of the 1x10s as well.