When I purchased my rustic cabin in Glen Haven in the fall of 2017, I also purchased a small forest of about 30 trees, mostly pines. One tree, a huge douglas fir, had actually fallen down in a spring storm earlier that year. I purchased an electric chainsaw and removed the limbs (delimbing) a few months ago. In August, my son-in-law rented a 20″ chainsaw and he began bucking (cutting in optimal lengths) the 50′ trunk. He cut two eight foot lengths I can debark and hopefully use as columns in the cabin rebuild. He also cut three four-foot lengths we could load in the Jeep and take to the local saw mill. The rest, he cut into 12-15″ lengths for firewood next year. I am becoming a modern-day lumberjack.
At the end of August, I purchased an axe and a draw knife from Amazon and a four pound wedge at an antique store to aid in splitting the firewood and scraping the future wood columns. The metal wedge made splitting the wood fairly easy for me to do and helped me build up my biceps! An added bonus.
While the work was slow, the rewards were tremendous. On our way home, my son-in-law and I took two of the four-foot length logs to the Mountain Home Wood Products sawmill in Drake. We asked them to cut the two logs into 1″ lumber, leaving the live edge. A couple of days later I picked up my new load of rough sawn lumber and took it home. Only $25.90 for beautiful douglas fir live edge lumber! The wood was still very wet and will require a few months of drying.
The lumber is now stickered under my pool table. I have a fan lightly blowing at least 10-12 hours a day to keep the air moving. The intoxicating aroma throughout the house the first night was almost too much to bear. But now, after a few days, the smell is not as strong. The fan helps a lot too.
I hope to use the live edge lumber for open shelving in the future cabin’s kitchen and on the kitchen island. I can sure get into this modern-day lumberjacking!