OLD OAK PRODUCED GREAT LUMBER

There was a massive red oak on the farm that began to show signs of stress.  Some of the top branches were leaf free, so in speaking to a couple of people to confirm my thoughts, they concurred that the tree was beginning to die.

I did not want to lose this tree to rot or to fire wood since the base of the tree measured over four feet across.  After checking with my friend that cuts firewood, he said he could cut the tree down since he could get a chain saw with a three foot bar.  He started making his cuts and notch and fell the tree where we wanted it to land.  Sure enough, the center of the trunk had a two rotten spots about six inches across.  I counted the growth rings and determined that the tree had stood for approximately 150 years.

 

I stood my granddaughter up to the base of the tree to get a better perspective of the size of the tree.  She stood about twenty eight inches tall at the time.  The tree had two large branches that branched off of the trunk, one of which measured over thirty six inches across.


An Amish fellow with a portable sawmill came and sawed the logs into one inch by six inch boards.  This large oak yielded about 1100 board feet of lumber.  I had cut two additional oaks that had also died and they yielded an additional 1100 board feet combined.

It took two days to stick and stack the 2200  board feet of lumber in an old barn to begin the drying process.  For those not familiar with the sticking process, a small stick is laid across a row of boards.  Depending on the length of the boards determines the amount of sticks to lay cross ways.  This lumber is a little over eight feet long so we used two to three sticks per layer of lumber.  It usually takes one year per inch thickness of board to dry.  In April of 2017 these boards will be ready.