It’s sort of fitting how hard we worked today, with it being Labor Day, and all. We worked ourselves really hard, though, even though it wasn’t very pleasant weather wise, either. With the chipper broken from yesterday, it seemed logical to spend the day running the sawmill instead, and we really hoped that we wouldn’t break that as well. And we didn’t, whew!
We’re getting quite good with levers and pry bars, but still, moving around huge oak logs is a lot like work. We cut a few 4x4s and 6x6s out of some of the smaller logs that we had down already, but most of the day was spent dealing with the very bottom of the huge tree that took out the power lines the other day.
We used the front of the truck to pull it out of where it had fallen, after Frank cut it to length. Even then it was tricky, though, and took four passes, I think, with the truck to get it to where we could roll it up onto the mill.
But, when all was said and done, it yielded what we think are the remaining stair treads for the entrance way, which is very exciting. That’s one of the last remaining things we have to do to finish the new house construction, and it’s only been six years! (ha) But having nice thick oak stair treads from wood that we milled ourselves is rather cool.
Working out in the drizzle all day was pretty miserable, though. The sawdust from the mill mixed in with the wetness and made it stick to every part of our bodies. This is the second day in a row that we soaked our weary muscles in the big tub after working outside all day, though, which was really nice.
Princess-kitty kept us company all day out there, too, which was very cute. Even the noise from the chainsaw and sawmill didn’t scare her away, and she kept coming over to inspect the logs that we were looking at trying to figure out why we were interested in them. It was almost like having a curious toddler around, because we kept having to check to see where the cat was before we moved the truck or log or whatever. Very companionable, though. I’m used to having her company while I weed, but while we sawed was a bit different.