Lumber and log applications. Lumber mill cleanup

Cleaning up the old lumber logs in front of the barn

I working on milling up the lumber that's blocking my trailer bay on the red barn.  Some of this wood has been lying here for over 4 years!  I suspect some may be past saving. 

Lots of the lumber is milled up in this picture.  The scrap pile is getting impressive!

Here is the lowest part of the bole from that big oak I cut down in the front yard.  

15+ inches across here, but there is a piece missing so I will cut this down another inch or two.

Not a long log - only 7ft, but thick!

 

Here is a shot of it before cutting down

First cut

This one needed some trimming with the chain saw to get the sawmill carriage past the log.

The bottom part of the big oak bole was far easier to mill than the top!  The top had the "split" which caused all kinds of size issues (and rot/decay issues, as it turned out).

I missed taking pictures of the real hard part of this work: getting it to this point in the milling

Great.  After all this work, its mostly crap wood on the inside.

It's going to be difficult to get any good lumber out of this piece.

Long story, significantly shortened:  a single 6x6 inch post! That's all I could get!  But, I got plenty of wood for the chipper.

Scrap pile is FULL!

The good news:  All of the old wood has been milled!

Chain sharpening

Chainsaw chain sharpening

I found that I needed to replace my chain on the chainsaw with a sharp one - but I had no sharp ones left!  So I stopped to take the time to sharpen these.  They are the short chains for the Husqvarna.

Sawmill problems

Belt tensioner pulley bearing went out

For some reason, the bearings on the belt-tensioner pulley went out when I was using the mill this weekend.  I thought I may be able to fix by exchanging bearing from another pulley (the mower deck spindles), but because of the way the bearings are integrated into the pulley, I couldn't.  

Ratatouille and locust tree deer damage

I made Ratatouille!  (kind of)

Remember those eggplant that I had no plans for?  Well, here is what I did with them.  I made 

Ratatouille.  Used all of those eggplant that I picked last weekend, some of the tomatoes, and some canned tomato sauce from last year (well, from a previous year).  I also used a jar of my home-canned salsa because I didnt have the right spices.  It was risky and almost ruined things, but it ended up turning out quite good.  Although, I doubt if anyone who has eaten Ratatouille before would recognize this as ratatouille - LOL.

This ratatouille tastes awesome over white rice!

Most nutcrackers can't crack hickory nuts! 

I learned this the hard way!  Bought these off Amazon.  Fortunately, I was able to return even after they broke. 

I actually repaired this one and broke it a second time.  I guess I will keep it now since I did get some of the nuts cracked with it.

This one, however, broke on the very first attempt!  I am not sure it wasn't actually a defective casting rather than just being overwhelmed by the hickory nuts!

Deer-tree damage

I walk the property usually when I first get to the farm.  This time I noticed something when I toured the locust tree grove.  Freaking deer!  They really hit the locust trees hard this year - maybe 15-20 trees are severely damaged. :(   The good news is that NONE of the fruit trees got scrapped up this year (so far anyway).  The tree cages seem to work! Yay