First Lumber

Phil finished assembling the sawmill today, and dragged (by hand!) one of the logs we've had next to the driveway (cut down from our stone fruit orchard, and dragged out with the truck over the winter).

He started with a termite-eated pine, which was a good idea, because first attempts are always a bit tenuous, even though he's watched multiple movies about how to saw.

In order to make a round tree into square lumber, first you must clamp the tree in place, so it won't roll while sawing. (I guess, really what comes first is felling the tree, then limbing the tree, and somehow man-handling it onto the mill. For a large tree, I think that would be a job in itself!)

Next, you take off the top, in order to create a flat surface.

This can be tricky: how can you tell if you've taken off enough? If you don't have it low enough, the blade will emerge out of the side of the tree, rather than the end. And if you try multiple times at almost the same depth, you might end up with a very fine sheet of wood: almost like paper. It took several goes, but Phil was finally satisfied.

With one flat edge, professionals turn the log 90 degrees, and saw off the top again. This gives them a square corner, and they can stop using the guides after that.

Then the third side, and either the fourth, for a square log (above), or simply leave the three-sided log in place and cut boards off the top, leaving the bottom rounded.

As you may tell from the photo, Phil's first attempt didn't work out quite so smoothly. His square, for whatever reason, was not square; no 90 degree angles anywhere. So frustrating!

He took a break in the air conditioning, and researched what he might be doing wrong. For the next logs, he would get one side flat, then flip the log over, so the flat side was down. This gave him a good, workable surface, and he cut some very serviceable poplar boards. Non-standard dimensions (not 2x4s), but beautiful, pretty much square boards. Really fun!

In other news, Tyson, our regular hay guy, came today and mentioned that it is so unusually dry in Virginia right now that many people are feeding hay already. (We are, but that's because we have very little grass to begin with, and our lower pasture isn't fenced yet.)

To make matters worse, the first cutting of hay was only half what it usually is, and the second cutting might not happen. The price for stocker cattle (where you buy a young calf, maybe 350 to 600 pounds, and feed the calf until it's ready for the feedlot or, if grassfed, processing) has dropped about $.30 per pound in the last couple of weeks. Instead of $1.20 per pound, they are selling for about $.90. That's a pretty large percentage drop.

Phil and I have been learning about stocker cattle, and it's interesting to actually witness what we've learned: drought and destocking (where you sell cattle because you don't have enough feed), price drops and hay shortages.

We are so thankful to have hay supplied. If we had to try to make it ourselves, there is just no way. The cutter alone runs about $25,000. Farmers who need hay might have to ship it in from other states, or destock. Oh, the pain!

All these things I never thought about when living in town. Hmm. Lack of rain makes life difficult for farmers.

Most of our trees appear to be doing well. We are thankful, especially, for irrigation!