Notes From Zone 4

I took advantage of the nice weather today (20 degrees), to fire up the sawmill for the first time since we got back. If I don’t get going, we’ll have to buy wood for the chicken coop.

Kevin had been using the mill, of course, but it was close to 18 months since I had.

There were the usual getting back in the groove issues:

• I couldn’t get the band tensioned properly, which turned out to be some bolts left loose.
• Then I used boiling water to thaw the dogging mechanism.
• Then the starter rope broke. That one isn’t fixed right. It doesn’t retract anymore.

But the mill was running, with a log on it.

Lisa came out then to help — things go much faster with an offbearer, and we sliced up the one log in the pile that wasn’t frozen down.

Our yield for the day was two 1 x 6 and three 2 x 4s. That isn’t great output for an afternoon’s work, but I’ve got it squared away now, so the next time will go much better.

We stored the cut wood in the hoop house, which will keep it from being buried in the coming snowstorm. It’s handy to have someplace like that, finally.