Richmond Woods Sawmill

Woodworking is something that has long held my interest. Especially building things out of hardwood.  Since hardwood is in no short supply in these parts, I decided it would be a good thing to have my own sawmill so that I could provide myself with the raw materials to pursue that interest.

After much shopping around for the best saw I could get for my money, I settled on the Canadian-built Woodland Mills HM122. This saw will handle logs up to 22 inches in diameter and, with the track extension, up to 16 feet long. This should take care of all of my future needs.  Along with the saw, I also purchased an automatic blade sharpener.

I did not want such a nice piece of equipment left in the weather so I decided to first build a Sawmill Shed. As soon as the shed was complete, I ordered the mill and it arrived a couple of weeks later.

It took me about 4 days to set up the saw. Most of that time was spent preparing a bed for the track and leveling it.

Assembling the trolley and mounting the saw head was a two person job but I managed to do it alone using the forklift on my tractor. Believe me when I say that a second person would have been much easier and faster.

Finally, all adjustments having been made, I made my first cut on a short block of wood left behind by the tree trimmers.

So far, I've only milled a few logs. The first piece  that I've milled that has actually been put into use is a large piece of Red Oak for a fireplace mantel at Carolyn's house in Brookhaven. This tree fell about two years ago due to natural causes. I had been meaning to cut it up for firewood (before I decided to buy the sawmill) but just had not gotten around to it. When I remembered it, I was afraid there would not be much left of it from rot. To my surprise, I got a 12x12 cant out of a 9 foot section. (A "cant" is the rectangular form of the log after you saw off four sides of the bark.)  From this I milled a 2x12, several 1x12s, and a massive 3x12 for the mantel which is already installed (last pic).

I look forward to milling enough oak planks to panel the inside of my shop. Already I have sawn pieces that I plan to use for the permanent corner braces of the sawmill shed in addition to stock that will become new wheel barrow handles and a couple of step stools.

Stay tuned for further developments.

January 2020

As promised (or threatened depending on your viewpoint) here is the first of hopefully 12 posts for 2020.

The big excitement for me this month was the delivery of a gasoline-powered log splitter. When you heat your house with wood and you're pressing 70 years of age, this is as much a necessary tool as a chainsaw.  Every year one or more trees succumb to age, disease, or weather. I am using my sawmill to make lumber out of the useful wood but the rest goes into heating my home. I can pull this one to the site of the fallen tree and split as I cut. This saves me having to load and unload the wood more than once.

Now that I have all that spare time saved by the log splitter, I am learning how to make bread. I started with a very simple no-knead recipe from the King Arthur website. This recipe was inspired by the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Nothing that tastes this good could be simpler. You make a big batch of dough that will keep in the fridge for a week. When you want fresh bread, you just grab a handful, shape it or throw it in a loaf pan, let it come back to room temperature (an hour or so), then bake it for 30 or 40 minutes.

Also, I've been expanding my repertoire of vegan dishes. This first one is actually some oyster mushroom I found growing on a hickory log in front of the shop. You wouldnt expect to be eating fresh-picked local fruits at this time of year but there they were. The second dish is a squash chili made with a butternut squash that was trying its best to start a garden inside itself. Nearly all of the seeds had sprouted and a couple of them actually had green first leaves!  Both dishes were phenomenal!  And on the good news front, my bad cholesterol has dropped 42% in only 9 months.

After 5 years of service, the little air pump used to bubble ozone into my water finally gave up the ghost. I tried a couple of times to repair it but some things just cant be fixed. So, I ordered a replacement and installed it using some little vibration damping pads I made by cutting slices from a tube of silicone calk that had set up. Water service back on line.

After almost two year of faithful service, my internet provider let me down by cutting support for my LTE modem. It took many phone calls and a few trips to nearby Fort Payne to solve the problem and to finally secure a solution that performs as well as the last one. It now costs me 50% more per month but we feel too isolated without it.

2019 In Review

My apologies everyone. This has been a busy year. Too busy in fact to tell you (in simulated real time) about all the stuff I've been doing. So, here is one giant post to cover the entire year! The biggest news is that I finally joined Carolyn in retirement! That's right, I'm still working my butt off only now I'm not drawing a paycheck.

Within days of my retirement, we were off to France for a week and then to Kent, England for another week. When I returned to the US, I began a vegan lifestyle in earnest. This was a 180 from the Keto diet I had been following the previous 9 months.

This summer, Carolyn took me out to the ballgame in Chattanooga for my birthday. The Lookouts won! We had a nice 10-day visit with Carolyn's daughters and granddaughters: Atlanta to shop and Richmond Woods to camp.

Right after my birthday I got the very sad news that my youngest daughter's mother, Pam, had passed away. It seemed sudden and too soon although she had been ill and suffering for some time. Our daughter returned from Scotland and I spent as much time with her as I could trying to help where needed.

Near the end of Sara's visit, Carolyn and I travelled to Utah for a couple of weeks of sightseeing and visiting friends. The timing was unfortunate but plans and reservations had been made early in the year. It was good to see my old friend and the many spectacular landscapes.

Speaking of old friends, this year we attended my 50th high school class reunion. It was good to see all of those old friends too.  A few weeks later, I lost my eldest brother to cancer. He was about to turn 81.

On our annual Thanksgiving trip to Virginia to be with Carolyn's family, we had the special honor of celebrating her mother's 100th birthday! I think Estelle's longevity is due to her extremely good nature and easy going attitude.  We took her for several long rides in the countryside and down along the Shenandoah river - something she really enjoys.

As you can see, 2019 has been an eventful year.  Still, I did manage to squeeze in a couple of major projects (with Nathan's help) as well as some gardening (with Carolyn's help). The major projects were the completion of the Tractor Shed and the construction of the Sawmill Shed.

Tractor Shed

Seven long months have passed since I poured the footers for the retaining wall. I laid the cinder blocks (reinforced every 3 feet with 1/2" rebar) and filled them with concrete. Then I dug six holes for the concrete piers on which the support posts would rest. I used cardboard forms and embedded steel post anchors. Pretty tricky getting these anchors in just the right place with only a couple of tape measures and a basic knowledge of trigonometry.

With the retaining wall and post footers in place, I was done with my part. Waiting on Nathan and crew to erect the woodwork and the metal roof. I knew it was going to be a long wait so I started on the sawmill shed.

Sawmill Shed

With 40 wooded acres, I have one or more mature trees naturally fall down each year. This is far more wood than I could use to heat my home so I purchased a sawmill to turn the trunks into useful wood for various building projects, furniture, tool handles, and knick-knacks. The sawmill shed will protect the saw as well as provide a dry space to cure sawn lumber.

I picked a relatively flat spot near the shop and removed the trees. I saved the trunks to serve as the posts and beams of the shed. Then I dug up the stumps and leveled the site.  Next I dug holes and placed forms for the post footers as I did for the tractor shed.

I used an axe to skin the bark off the logs that were to become the posts and beams. With the chainsaw, I carved a saddle in the top of each post to recieve the beam. I used Digger to erect the timber frame. I fashioned straps out of mild steel stock to secure the beams to the posts.

Meanwhile, Nathan and crew arrived and began framing out the tractor shed.

When they finished with the tractor shed, they jumped over and put the roof on the sawmill shed.  Here are the finished structures...

I do have the sawmill set up and operational - see Richmond Woods Sawmill.

In addition to these major projects, there were numerous smaller projects as well as some gardening.

Miscellaneous Projects

Among the countless little things there are to do around here, these stand out because I took the photos which served to remind me: improvements to my driveway and well head, addition of web-based status reporting capability to my solar power plant, wiring up a distribution panel and installing insulation and temporary lighting in the shop and painting sealer on the shop roof to seal tiny leaks.




And lastly, that dinky little firewood stack I bragged about last year was good for weekends but not fulltime Winter occupancy. Did I mention that I am now officially an Alabama resident? Well, I realized I would need a great deal more wood to keep the house warm 24-7 so I built a big wood rack under the carport where I could store lots of firewood and keep it dry.

Gardening

No description of our endeavors this past year would be complete without mentioning a couple of garden related efforts. After all, we did become vegan this year.

On a whim, I planted a couple of bad potatoes in buckets on the back porch. Despite neglect, they did fairly well and I harvested about 2 pounds of small potatoes the middle of November.

Sometime in February, I planted some seeds we collected from a "sand pear" given to us by a lady who has a farm in south Georgia. The seeds sprouted and I transplanted them into terrariums I made from 2-liter soda bottles. They survived the 3 weeks I was away and unable to water them. In early summer I transplanted them again into 6 inch pots and left them to fend for themselves on the back deck. Once they were attacked by a groundhog and after that I put them up on a table. In November, we transplanted them into a small grove down near the power house and protected them with tall cages and chicken wire. Maybe I will live long enough to taste their fruit.

We have prepared two garden beds for planting next Spring. They are raised beds, each 4 by 25 feet, bordered with old logs and are made using the principles of "hugelkulture". Basically this is the technique of burying large amounts of old wood which serves to hold water like a sponge and also to later provide a source of nitrogen. Instead of making the typical mound structure, we dug a 2 foot deep trench and filled it with alternating layers of wood and dirt. The final layer is top soil I removed from the sawmill site.  I'm hoping to get one more of these built before planting season.

Carolyn tends all of the various flower beds as well as the wild azaleas and other native plants. She helped me plug in some grass I collected and brought from her house in Atlanta - Zoysia I think. Anyway, we are trying hard to get a lawn going in front of the house.

We wrapped up the year by taking down some extraneous fencing at the entrance to the property and putting up a Christmas tree - our first at RW!  Lastly, we (Carolyn, mainly) installed a glass tile backsplash in the kitchen. This really adds a touch of glamor to the most used room in the house.

That's pretty much it.  One of my resolutions for 2020 is to keep this blog updated at least once a month. You guys hold me to it!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!