Wo-Who! Chest Thumping Proud
Dirk Wright
>I got my former 100 year old red oak back from the sawer yesterday, and I'm a happy camper! I now have 500 bdft of quarter sawn red oak stickered in my carport! Wo-Who!
To tell the rest of the story: I live near the path of Hurricane Isabel, and I lost one of my beloved friends, a 90 foot tall, 100 year old red oak. He took out two likewise tall skinny pine trees on his way down, and wedged his top near the base of my neighbor's equally tall white oak. So, I'm down to about 44 oak trees on my little one acre plot of land.
I made a promise to this old fella that I'd do something responsible and sensible with him. A good forty feet of his 21" DBH trunk was virtually clear of limbs. So, I cut him up into five 8 foot lengths, the rest of him became firewood. I then rented a full size backhoe (for 370$) to drag the logs out of the woods and rip out the stump. Then I found a sawer with a Woodmizer and hired him to come get the logs and cut them up into quarter sawn boards. He got done last week, so I paid him 300$ and made three trips with my small pickup, tail dragging all the way. So, it took me this long, five months, to get the tree made into lumber. With a full time job and a two hour commute one way, I suppose it's understandable. Anyway, it'll be a year before I can do anything with the wood. Then another six months sitting in the house. I want to make this wood into something that will be a part of the house, since I think it's important to have wood from the property in the house. I'm thinking of paneling, frame-and-panel style, but obviously, I have a couple of years to decide and to get my ww skills up to snuff. Here's hoping (with fingers crossed)...
