Birdseye heaven

Just got back from a trip to the mill to get a trailer load of green stock. I had asked for some 12/4 birdseye and flame birch for bed post material. I know this is super scarce. Drying takes forever and finding big logs is never easy. Plus you are going against the veneer companies to purchase those. Well, I hit the motherload. My son in law picked me up and we stated out about 6:30 am. It was a wonderful drive. Sunny and pleasant. We made good time and even stopped for breakfast. When I got to the mill, it was real quite. They work 4 10 hour days and Friday was an off day. The loader guy was working thankfully. I was told I didn't have much to pickup. I was told wrong....

The loader guy was picking up bundles and bringing them to the truck. He came with 3 bundles and told us there were more. Not on this load...The wood was all frozen together. Took some pounding with sledge hammers to get it apart. I was speechless. There were planks, 3" and 17" wide. Beautiful white birdseye. The whole trailer got filled quick. We had to hand load some to get the most on without being overloaded. We had almost 6000# on the trailer. The roads were a bit lumpy to say the least, so we strapped it down and headed out.

Unloading was no fun. Had to beat it more with sledges. Stacking and stickering was a chore. Heavy wet and icy. Some of the big planks weighed several hundred pounds. Made for some exciting stacking to say the least. No smashed fingers thankfully. Wet cold hands, but those are fixable. Hope you enjoy the pics. It was a great day to say the least. Hope to be going back in the next month for some flame birch. I hope to have this dried and ready to sell by the end of this year. Thick stock is always a slow process. This will make some great turning stock, bedposts or tables. I have never in my life seen this thick and wide of birdseye. All great figure too.

Cutting season has begun.

This is the second load of the fall. About 500 ft. Got a load 2 weeks ago that was about twice this size. Lots of 8/4 birdseye and flame birch. A little 6/4 and lots of 4/4. Some nice wide stuff too. I even saw some spalted in there. My son in law dropped this off last night about 8 pm. It will get stacked and stickered this morning. Lots of frost as you can see. It is 25 as I write this. This is the time they start cutting lots of maple and birch at the mills. No staining when it is cold like this. This will now air dry for at least a month or more. Probably more. I have several thousand feet waiting to go into the kiln.  I did get the quarter sawn curly maple out of the kiln. I will be sending those pictures out in my wood letter to my customers. I have only a little, but it turned out very nice. More is air drying as we speak. If you don't get my wood letter and want one, email me. Hope you are staying warm  and to all my east coast friends, God bless you. Hope you all get through the aftermath of the storm ok. I hear lots of stories about no help from fema and the other government groups. I hope that is not the case.