From Stump to Sticker

We spent the beginning of last week leveling our site, sizing and building formwork, and pouring concrete for our barn's grade beam foundation.  The weather up here is pretty wild: sunny and warm one minute, big wind and horizontal rain the next.  Not the ideal for the the work we are doing, but native Vermonters just shrug and say, "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes, and it will change!"  Nevertheless, we were able to put together all of our formwork, cut and lay our rebar, and get everything level by the time the truck showed up for our pour.  We even had time to learn how to float concrete to get an extra nice surface for our grade beam.

The latter part of the week we spent sourcing more lumber for our project.  We cut down two trees at Yestermorrow's campus, one white pine about 100+ years old, and a hemlock tree about 70+ years old.  After learning about safe felling techniques, our fearless leader Nick, dropped the trees with his chainsaw.  Once down, he limbed the trees (removed all limbs), and then bucked the trees into several different lengths - indicated by our cut list for our barn.  This method gives you the opportunity to waste less wood than buying from a traditional lumber yard.  Some of the limbs of the trees are  even big enough for us to get some decorative pieces out of.

Hauling these large segments of tree from the forest took the majority of Thursday afternoon, and I now know more about logging equipment than I ever anticipated.  An understanding of physics and points of leverage are really helpful tools when figuring out how to move an 800 lb. tree, as well as the right tools!

Friday, we spent milling our trees into lumber for our project.  As a professional sawyer, Nick has his own portable sawmill, the Wood Miser.  It really is pretty amazing to watch a tree trunk transform into lumber.  Once cut to size, the lumber is placed on 1x furring strips, known as stickers, above the ground.  This technique allows the lumber to dry, and control (and prevent) warpage.  Our lumber will not be kiln dried for this project, so we need to take extra care in our stickering process.  Staggering the stickers is a big no-no, as this will cause uneven drying and deformation.