I have posted about renovating/preserving/restoring some of the older structures on my wife's farm several times. It takes lumber to accomplish this, and lumber is very expensive right now. Luckily, I have some pretty nice mature pines, and a friend with a portable sawmill.
He and I went out one day in early December and selected and flagged about 16 trees to take down. He brought his mill and his tractor the Tuesday after Christmas, and felled the trees, and limbed and bucked some of them into lengths for milling.
I had him saw some logs into two-inch framing lumber, but most was sawn into one inch boards for siding. The pine species is loblolly, a type that, given room to grow, produces some tall, straight, and relatively knot-free logs. It is a type of Southern Yellow Pine. Most of the trees came from a ten acre tract I had thinned down about 10 years ago to what we call a "plantation stand" down here. They really grew in that time. Each tree yielded three logs, usually a 12 foot, another 10 or 12 foot, and an 8 or 10 foot. The two logs where my granddaughter is sitting are 14 footers, because I need some 14 foot boards to replace siding on a 125-150 year old smokehouse.
Wes, my young friend with the mill, has a very good YouTube channel called Fall Line Ridge. He has been very successful with his channel with around 250,000 subscribers. He has recently posted three videos of his work on my place. By the way, he cut the trees on shares, keeping one-half of the lumber for himself, which means I had no out of pocket expenses, except for hiring some labor to haul my lumber in and stack it for air drying. Wes's videos are very well done, with a minimum of talk. He has some great shots of felling the trees, including drone shots.
He and I went out one day in early December and selected and flagged about 16 trees to take down. He brought his mill and his tractor the Tuesday after Christmas, and felled the trees, and limbed and bucked some of them into lengths for milling.
I had him saw some logs into two-inch framing lumber, but most was sawn into one inch boards for siding. The pine species is loblolly, a type that, given room to grow, produces some tall, straight, and relatively knot-free logs. It is a type of Southern Yellow Pine. Most of the trees came from a ten acre tract I had thinned down about 10 years ago to what we call a "plantation stand" down here. They really grew in that time. Each tree yielded three logs, usually a 12 foot, another 10 or 12 foot, and an 8 or 10 foot. The two logs where my granddaughter is sitting are 14 footers, because I need some 14 foot boards to replace siding on a 125-150 year old smokehouse.
Wes, my young friend with the mill, has a very good YouTube channel called Fall Line Ridge. He has been very successful with his channel with around 250,000 subscribers. He has recently posted three videos of his work on my place. By the way, he cut the trees on shares, keeping one-half of the lumber for himself, which means I had no out of pocket expenses, except for hiring some labor to haul my lumber in and stack it for air drying. Wes's videos are very well done, with a minimum of talk. He has some great shots of felling the trees, including drone shots.
