Milling up some hickory

First - some pictures of my puppies! 

No reason - they are just so cute!

Sugar (aka, "Sugar-Bee", "Wiggles", Wiggle-bottom")

Frisco (aka, "Frisco-doodle-hopper")

Freeze-drying Apples

We stopped at Mile-Level in Bedford PA and got some more apples.  We did a batch with cinnamon-sugar, which I didn't care for as much as the plain - so we did all the rest of that bushel of apples plain.  These are great snacks!  Crunchy and not full of sugar and fat.

Cinnamon-sugar apple slices.  I think I like these apple without the cinnamon-sugar, actually.

Freeze-dryer front shot

Freeze-dryer vacuum pump and filter

Deer-hunting: searching for a buck in the DAYLIGHT!

I have some trail-cam pictures of some bucks, but NONE in the DAYLIGHT!  

Would love to see this fellow in the daylight!  My blind is only about 15 feet (not yards - FEET) from where he is in this picture.

This was after the "fall back" time change - so the actual time here is 4:06 AM!

Milling some hickory

I finally got to milling that hickory tree I brought down over a year ago (almost 2 years - shame shame).  the bole on this tree was almost 25 feet!  I had to cut it for milling.  I got a 13 foot section and a 12 foot section.  I milled the big (bottom) end first.  Initially it didnt look like the bugs had gotten into it so bad, but after i cut some boards I learned the sad truth.  I figured that I could dice and slice some good little pieces of boards from this thing and use them to build my workbench!   

Lots of hickory sawdust.  Not good for mulch.  Hickory is similar to walnut and will inhibity the growth of other plants!  Not too mention that I won't use sawdust for mulch anymore.  At least not by itself.  It acts like a roof and the water runs off it!

Some checking here, as you can see.  Not too bad really considering the time and conditions it was in.

Nice planks that i hope to use for tool handles and such - hickory is tough, hard and flexible.  Ideal for tool handles!

These are some of the mill-ends that I will use to make my workbench top

After cutting the boards down to some useable pieces.

Before I edged them

A lot of the mill ends are just to buggy or crooked/split to be useful as lumber.  This should make nice fires though!

Edged and planed

Ready to cut to width!