I Save Everything

Thirty five years ago a big storm came through with lots of rain and very high winds. My neighbors had two enormous white oak trees in their front yard that were blown down. They were both over 36” in diameter at the base and 29” in diameter up 22’. I asked if I could have the trees to take to the sawmill. The owner said yes with the caveat that his son, who was away at college, would perhaps want a few boards.

That weekend I sawed the trees into five logs about 10’ long. I had already asked another neighbor if I could borrow his heavy trailer and truck. He brought his very big tractor with forks to load the logs. The tractor would not pick up the logs. We built two ramps up to the side of the trailer but the tractor couldn’t push them up. My neighbor had a brilliant idea. We lifted one end of the log with the tractor and wrapped a long log chain around the log 8 or 9 wraps. We drove the tractor to the opposite side of the trailer and hooked the chain to the bucket. When he backed up, the log rolled up the ramps as the chain unwound. We made a winch!

I took the logs to the sawmill and they laughed at me. The logs were too big to go through the sawmill. The sawyer was a pretty smart guy who had apparently faced this dilemma before. He told me to get a rip chain for my chainsaw and slice the logs in half. The following weekend, rip chain installed I started slicing the 5 logs in half lengthwise. The saw would only go halfway thru so the sawyer had one of his men bring their huge forklifts over to turn each log 180 degrees so I could saw through from the other side.

Finally I had 10 half logs that would fit in the mill. I wanted them quartersawn which doubled the price. I brought the lumber home and stacked it on sticks so it would air dry. It took over a year to get the moisture content low enough to use as furniture.

In 1994 Pennie and I, along with a crew of three guys, built our post and beam construction house. It took about fifteen months. I used the white oak boards from those massive trees to build our two breakfast bar counters, Pennie’s desk, the open stairs to the top floor and the big table in the breakfast nook. I saved the cutoffs from these wide boards. They’ve been in my shop since the mid-eighties.

Below is a platter I made today from one of those cutoffs. I’m glad I saved them all these years!