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.

Loading the kiln

Came home yesterday with a load of beautiful wet, green lumber. I got 8/4 birdseye maple, 8/4 and 4/4 flame birch and 4/4 curly hard maple. There is about 800ft, maybe more or less. I was driving with a friend of mine and we had his V10 ford truck. Nice truck. And I am not a ford guy. It was noticeable pulling this load. The roads were icy and sleet and snow was falling. Weatherman said it was sunny. Somehow, I need to find a job like that. Got the load back about 6 hours after we left home. Took it to the sawmill and drykiln guy I use. His name is Bob to. Come to think of it, the guy I drove with was named Bob too. 3 Bobs. No comment...
The load was too big to lift off the trailer with the bobcat[another bob]. I got on the back end , but it didn't do anything. So, we pulled part of the load off and dumped it on the landing. He came back and again I climbed on the back of the bobcat, this time it almost lifted it without coming up on the back end. Thankfully, my butt was enough to hold it almost down to get it unloaded.
Today, Bob called me and said it was time to load the kiln, but he was busy with his own project, so I went over and loaded. Good God , that stuff didn't get any lighter over night.

This is a piece of 8/4 birdseye, almost 14 or 15" wide and 12 feet long. It weighs about 32000 lbs. I think...

This is some 8/4 and 4/4 flame birch. Notice the red heartwood in the birch. It is the color of cherry. This is what they call unselected for color. Means they allow both heartwood and sap in the same piece. I dye this a cherry color and it looks great when its done. I can't wait to turn some legs from the 8/4 stock. All this stuff is just beautiful.

Another shot of the flame birch.

Notice the wide board on the bottom left? That is a 17" wide piece of 4/4 hard tiger maple. I got the stock from 1 tree and its all nice wide clear heavy tiger maple. Its the same as the 8/4 birdseye stock. That all came from 1 tree also. I call those log sets. Once they are dried, I keep all the pieces together. That way, the color for a project is all the same. The price on logs sets is about double or triple regular stock. I don't get things like this very often at all. I have to keep track of these and it takes space and time.

This is some of the birdseye stock, it was from a veneer log that wasn't white enough, I guess. Sure am glad I got it. This is all 12 feet long.

Another shot of the birdseye.

More flame birch.

Notice the top piece? It is called bark inclusion hard maple. Very striking. Its one of those woods you either really like or not. I happen to like it. A lot. Again all from 1 tree.

From the bottom, birdseye maple, bark inclusion hard maple and hard tiger maple.

In the middle of loading this, I had to run to pick up some pieces from a show I did last weekend. I got the truck loaded and came back and finished. I am now home, took some ibuprofen and will eat some dinner. Its been a long day and my butt is dragging.