It's Milling Time

No, not Miller time, you bunch of lushes. It's only 7:30 in the morning. Don't you know you shouldn't admit to drinking before noon*? And you definitely shouldn't admit to drinking Miller. At any time.

ANYWAY.

Let's talk about the wood milling that was first mentioned lo these many months ago, finally got done this past weekend, and is just now making it into post form. Because I am just that prompt.

So! There's this old dude in the hills nearby who has a portable sawmill and will bring it to wherever to custom saw logs. The sign on his truck says he's been doing this since 1984. And his hands LOOK like he's been doing this since 1984. Hands that have never seen a manicure, for sure.

ANYWAY AGAIN.

The sawmill got to A.'s friend Jodi's house at 8:30 on Friday morning. A. had arrived earlier, about seven, to get the logs ready and in position. No mean feat, considering we're talking old growth trees, some of which were almost two feet in diameter. Luckily, neither A. nor Jodi is exactly petite. This is important, because Old Dude pretty much just runs the sawmill from his chair and expects his customers to load the logs and unload the boards.

So here's the sawmill just starting to cut into a log.

I think this is a sycamore log, but I wouldn't bet Cubby on it.

Based on the testimony from A. and Jodi, Old Dude was pretty merciless with the pace. I think he was testing them, seeing how fast they could go. Although he did help a little, as this photo shows. This is A. and Old Dude loading a log onto the sawmill using cant hooks, which are big sticks with a wicked hook on the end, used for kind of gripping the log and rolling it.

Better them than me.

After the boards were cut, they were stacked in various locations based on type of wood and size of cut. This is a pile of Jodi's sycamore that he had left in the original wavy shape.

In case you can't tell how wide those are . . . they're WIDE. Maybe a foot and some inches.

And so it went: load logs, unload boards, stack boards. All day. And when I say "all day" I mean ALL DAY. Twelve hours, as a matter of fact. A. estimated about 3,000 board feet were produced in the end, between his trees and Jodi's trees. For those of you with knowledge of these things, you know 3,000 board feet is a shitload of wood. For those of you without knowledge of these things? Well, that's still a shitload of wood.

A. and Jodi were hurtin' the next day, creaking around like old men. But they still had to stack all the wood properly so it can dry out and not rot in the rain. This took approximately six hours. And did I mention that it was over 80 degrees both days? Such pleasant work to do in the blazing sun.

This is A.'s pile, all pine boards.

Now that's a mighty purdy sight.

You wouldn't even be able to buy boards this big at Home Depot. But if you could, you probably couldn't afford this many. We certainly couldn't. But for the price of 18 hours and gallons of sweat--plus a pretty nasty sunburn that has made him into a literal redneck--all that wood is A.'s.

Totally worth it.

* You may have noticed I said you shouldn't ADMIT to drinking before noon. Not that you SHOULDN'T DRINK. An important distinction.